Collingdale service remembers COVID victims as well as war dead
John Hewlings, Collingdale’s manager, spoke to the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic times as he opened the borough’s annual Memorial Day service on the lawn in front of the Collingdale Community Center Monday.
“We have all seen our lives change as never before. We have lost family and friends. Our families have been separated due to the risk of exposure, our children have not been able to physically go to school and see their friends. The amount of time it will take to get back to normal and the unknown of what normal may be,” said Hewlings, “Today we pause to remember our veterans and the sacrifice they made, those who made the ultimate sacrifice and died for our country and those who have had to live with the memory of what they endured during their service. We also have to keep in our memories those we have lost during this pandemic.”
While the event was broadcast on Facebook Live for anyone wanting to safely view from a distance, a sizable number of people turned out for the event. Police Chief Kenneth Felker handed out face masks for anyone wanting one and those in attendance stood at a safe distance from each other.
For the 21st year, the Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Brigade served as honor guard at the ceremonies. A record number of motorcycles filled MacDade Boulevard during the service.
Among those in attendance was 101-yearold Army veteran Joseph Passaratti, who served through multiple invasions during World War II from
Africa into Italy, France and Germany. He served as a corporal in the 133rd Field Artillery Regiment. His job was to pull the trigger on a 105mm Howitzer, which could fire shells nearly 7 miles. He earned a Purple Heart when hit in the shoulder by shrapnel.
“I’m glad it’s gone. It was rough,” Passaratti said.
Navy veteran George Kaiser, Collingdale fire marshal and emergency management coordinator, was the main speaker. He opened with a recitation of President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysberg Address and recalled memorizing the speech when he attended school. In his presentation, Kaiser asked what motivated young men who had grown up the borough to go to fight on some
God-forsaken battlefield.
Kaiser focused the importance of Memorial Day through the last line of Lincoln’s address: “Tthat we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Following the speeches, Collingdale police and firefighters carried wreaths to the monument honoring those who served and died in service to the country.
Taps were played and a 21-gun salute was fired by the Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Brigade. Jack Corcoran, commander of Cpl. Wm. Greifzu VFW
#598 took a moment to remember the 98,000 Americans, many of them veterans, who have died in the past two months from
COVID-19, including Billy “Rides” Ostland, who was a member of the group. Ostland died of COVID-19 at the age of 64 on May 8 after being on a respirator for two weeks.
“He got sick on April 7 and was hospitalized April
16. By the 17th, they had him on a ventilator and he never knew what happened after that,” said his life partner, Dawn Speck. She added that doctors gave Ostland the drug hydroxychloroquine as well as plasma but neither worked. She also tested positive for the virus but never had severe symptoms.
“It really (hurts) when you lose somebody,” said Speck. “I hope if anybody learns anything, that didn’t think it was real, it is a real thing and it does take some people. I guess I’m angry because I look at the news and people who were on ventilators longer, why did they live and he didn’t?”
“We’ll beat it, we will beat it,” Corcoran said. “May they all rest in peace.”