Photos: Honoring Our Veterans Dinner at Memorial Hall

On Wednesday evening at Memorial Hall, Melrose City Hall in conjunction with the Middlesex Sheriff's Office held an "Honoring Our Veterans" dinner for local veterans in advance of Memorial Day this weekend.

Volunteers served the Middlesex County Deputy Sheriff's Association served food to veterans, who were thanked by city and county officials.

On Memorial's Hall stage sat a lonely chair at a small table set for dinner, but holding only a small plate with a slice of lemon and salt, a symbolic gesture to those veterans who are prisoners of war or missing in action. Bob Driscoll—chairman of the Melrose Veterans Advisory Board, a major in the Air Force Reserves and a Melrose firefighter—read a description explaining the symbolism of each element of the table.

• The table is small, symbolizing the frailty of one prisoner alone against his or her suppressors.
• The table cloth is white, symbolizing the purity of their intentions to respond to their country's call to arms.
• The rose, the blood they may have shed to defend the freedom of the U.S.A., and which reminds family and friends of missing comrades.
• The lemon slice on the plate symbolizes their bitter fate.
• The salt on the plate symoblize the countless tears of families as they wait.
• The glass inverted, as the veteran cannot toast with family, friends and fellow veterans that day.
• The candle is resminiscent of the hope in the hearts of family and friends to illuminate the way home, away from captors and to the open arms of a grateful nation.

Mayor Rob Dolan also presented plaques of appreciation to Mary Doyle and Ann Dailey, two volunteers who have kept the Melrose Veterans Services Office running in recent weeks due to the Veterans Services Officer Natalee Webb.

Dolan said with a smile and a laugh that Doyle stepped forward to help out and didn't expect to "soon be running a major city department" and that Dailey has worked enough for the city "to qualify for a pension," before thanking each for their service.

In another light-hearted moment, new Middlesex Sheriff Peter Koutoujian swore in his newest deputy, six-year-old Bobby Morrison, who pledged to be a nice person, make his bed and do his homework.