‘Every day is Memorial Day’ for vet’s relatives
Beyond a love of country that compelled David Connolly to serve one combat tour in Iraq and die in the midst of a second in Afghanistan, there was the ocean.
Along with five brothers and two sisters, Connolly’s childhood was sprinkled with memorable sleepovers on his grandfather’s commercial fishing boat, which was usually docked in front of the No Name restaurant on Boston’s Fish Pier.
“Paradise,” as Connolly’s brother, Gerry, described it the other day, “was sitting in David’s boat on a summer’s night in the harbor with a couple of fishing rods, a cooler of beer and the Red Sox on the radio.”
Three days ago, that was just one in a lifetime of memories that Gerry Connolly — along with his siblings Greg, Paul, Midge and Nancy — carried into a sacred piece of the South Boston waterfront, where the name of Major David S. Connolly was enshrined on a stunning memorial, along with more than 200 other Massachusetts men and women who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It’s been 11 years since David Connolly’s loved ones sailed out to Boston Light to scatter his ashes, but since that fateful day in April of 2005, when they learned David had been killed in a helicopter crash south of Kabul, each and every Memorial Day has been transformative.
“Memorial Day is so different for me now,” Midge Connolly said, “I reflect on it in so many ways. It’s incredibly sad, but also so very powerful, because I understand now what it truly means. I understand all that my brother sacrificed for us.”
Her sister, Nancy said, “Every day is Memorial Day for us. We’ve lived with this for many years now and, yes, there are things that start to change over time.
“We’ve gone from mourning David, the shock of losing him, to now where we mourn for the things he’s missed, all the things he didn’t get to do. He never got to know my children.”
It’s all part of what David Connolly’s siblings called “the evolution of Memorial Day.” Now they said it’s impossible to remember a time when this weekend marked the beginning of summer, a time to head for the Cape and party with friends.
At the moment when David Connolly chose to redeploy to Afghanistan, he had put himself through Boston College, ROTC and Suffolk Law School. He was working as a Suffolk County prosecutor assigned to the gang unit in Dan Conley’s office.
“He didn’t have to go ... .”