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Sylvia Michaud-Kessell, auxiliary chaplain of Foster-Carroll American Legion Post 72 in Paris, gives the benediction at Memorial Day services Monday at the Legion hall at 45 Church St. Post Commander Maj. Teresa Drag is at right. (Nicole Carter/Staff Writer)
Iraq War veteran Skip Mowatt addresses attendees at Memorial Day services Monday at the Foster-Carroll American Legion Hall, 45 Church St. in South Paris. (Nicole Carter/Staff Writer)

PARIS — Skip Mowatt told those assembled at the Memorial Day service Monday that he did not want the 21-year-old comrade he served with in Baghdad in 2006 to be forgotten.

“We want his memory to live on. To let him know we still think of him no matter what we do or where we’re at,” the former Paris police chief said during his keynote address on Memorial Day at the Foster-Carroll American Legion hall at 45 Church St.

“We didn’t bring him home the way we wanted to,” Mowatt said. “But it’s the most important thing: leave no comrade behind. … That’s what we do on Memorial Day. Remember the soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice.”

Maj. Teresa Drag, commander of both Foster-Carroll American Legion Post 72 and Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9787, led the service. Unity and remembrance were themes of speakers.

“As long as two comrades survive, so long will veterans of the United States continue to render tribute,” Drag told the audience of about 45 people. “We will not forget.”

Pastor Mike Carter of the First Congregational Church of South Paris gave the invocation. Bruce Whittemore, also of the church, led the Pledge of Allegiance.

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Boy Scout Toby Twitchell, 13, and his sister Lucia, 7, listen to speakers during Memorial Day ceremonies Monday at the Foster-Carroll American Legion Hall at 45 Church St. in South Paris. Toby was one of the volunteers who placed flags at veterans’ graves this spring. (Nicole Carter/Staff Writer)

President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address was read by Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School alumnus Alexi Knight, who also performed “Taps” during the program.

Sarah Glynn, former commander of Foster-Carroll American Post 27, presented Gen. John Logan’s General Order No. 11. Logan was founder of the Grand Army of the Republic and wrote the original proclamation that called for a Memorial Day to be a national holiday to remember fallen soldiers of the Civil War.

Bruce Morris, chaplain for VFW Post 9787, read John McCrae’s 1915 poem “In Flanders Fields,” and Jae Morris Sr., vice commander, read the tribute written in 1918 by R.W. Lillard, “America’s Answer” to “Flanders.”

The benediction was provided by American Legion Auxiliary Chaplain Sylvia Michaud-Kessell.

Nicole joined Sun Journal’s Western Maine Weeklies group in 2019 as a staff writer for the Franklin Journal and Livermore Falls Advertiser. Later she moved over to the Advertiser Democrat where she covers...

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