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Ridgewood ceremony honors families of those killed in military service
SEPTEMBER 28, 2014, 9:38 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2014, 9:45 PM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
Sometimes people – well-meaning people trying to skirt a painful topic – will avoid talking to Robin Griffin about her son Kyle, who died in May 2003 while serving as a 20-year-old soldier in Iraq.
Griffin, an Emerson resident, wishes people would not do that.
“Not mentioning him is more upsetting,” Griffin said recently.
That’s why she and her husband, Ron, said yes when asked to take part in a ceremony in Ridgewood on Sunday night honoring Gold Star mothers and the other relatives of soldiers killed in action.
“It’s amazing that people would turn out to do something like this,” she said prior to the ceremony in Van Neste Park.
About 140 people attended the service held just after sunset in the park, where luminarias — twinkling candles in small bags decorated with stars — lined the walkways. A soldier’s helmet and pair of boots rested near a rifle stuck into the ground.
One of the speakers at the ceremony, Dave Feeney, a local funeral director, talked about the distinction between Gold Star mothers who had lost a child and Blue Star mothers who have children in active military service or have served.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/ridgewood-ceremony-honors-families-of-those-killed-in-military-service-1.1098025#sthash.4D4OswkK.dpuf
