PARIS — Oxford County Sheriff Wayne Gallant urged a room of more than 100 people Friday morning to recognize Veterans Day as “a day of celebration, a day of remembrance, a day of thanksgiving and a day of forgiveness.”

Gallant, a U.S. Army veteran, was the featured veteran speaker at the ceremony, hosted and sponsored by the American Legion Foster-Carroll Post 72 at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School.

“Veterans Day should be a day to celebrate and enjoy the many rights and freedoms we enjoy that others in the world can only dream about,” Gallant said. “Remember those who have worn the uniform — and those who are presently wearing the uniform.”

He said that people should also “remember those who have fought, those who have died, and those who are here this morning.”

“Our country sent over 42 million warriors into battle and into harm’s way to protect the freedoms we enjoy today,” he said. “More than 1,099,000 have lost their lives in battle. We must always remember them, and the millions that survived those battles, until the day of our death, and their deaths.”

Gallant said that people should be thanking their veterans whenever they have a chance.

“George Orwell once said that people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf,” Gallant said. “Let us be thankful for the millions of rough men and women who have made it — and still make it — possible for us to sleep peacefully and be safe for more than 240 years.”

He finished his speech by reading a journal entry from when he took a literature class in college as a means of showing the audience why “we must forgive those who were once our enemy, and those who once disagreed with us.”

Independent U.S. Sen. Angus King spoke after Gallant, explaining that as a senator, he views it as “my job to make sure health care is adequately provided for veterans,” and that the military and the Defense Department should “spend as much money on people leaving the service as they do for the people in it.”

“In Washington, it’s tough to pass a constitutional amendment, and it’s tough to get a law passed,” King said. “But I tell you one thing I can do: poke the (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs).”

Speakers from the offices of Republicans U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and Rep. Bruce Poliquin both read remarks from the two legislators at the beginning of the ceremony.

Boy Scout Troop 130 kicked off the ceremony by leading the audience through the Pledge of Allegiance.

Several musical performances were scattered throughout the ceremony, including the national anthem by the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School band, a medley of songs by the MollyOckett Chorus, and a rendition of “God Bless America” by the First Congregational Choir.

The Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School String Quartet also performed a medley of songs.

Carla Beaudoin gave a brief talk about Bugles Across America, an organization created in 2000 that attempts to provide a bugler to sound taps during a veteran’s funeral honors.

At the end of the ceremony, Beaudoin performed taps on her trumpet.

mdaigle@sunmediagroup.net