Memorial Day Speeches: Rye Mayor Josh Cohn

As a follow-on to MyRye.com’s  reporting on Memorial Day, we have reached out to a handful of the day’s speakers for a copy of their remarks to share with our readers.

In addition to his prepared remarks, City of Rye Mayor Josh Cohn mentioned the work underway to renovate and update the City’s war memorials. This includes a new memorial for those that served in Iraq, Afghanistan and the global war on terror. There is also an effort underway to identified any individuals whose names are missing from the existing memorials and add those names. The City is expecting to have these various updates reflected by Veterans Day this fall.

Watch the video and read the remarks below:

Memorial Day 2024 – Mayor Josh Cohn remarks:

Thanks to the American Legion for organizing this observance. Special thanks to Robin Latimer for her attention to the parade – sadly rained out.  Thanks to City staff for all the work it takes to have this gathering.

Most of all, thanks to all of you for being here.  The media have reported that travel records are being broken this weekend.

And my goodness, rain or shine, there are sales galore…but here you are, and not because you don’t like a good bargain. Thank you for your presence.

I see you, me, all of us here as keeping a commitment to a moment of gratitude, of memory and recognition – a very small, small thing as against the enormity of the gift given us by hundreds of thousands who are no longer with us.  On most days we accept that gift with too little thought.

We are here to honor our friends, relatives and neighbors who have died in our military service – who have given everything for us. We honor the sacrifice: the lives not lived, the families shattered, the love not given or received.  It is honoring that we have to do, it is owed and there is perhaps some comfort in it for all of us, including I hope for those families who have suffered incalculable loss.

This is not my first time standing with you and trying to put into words the enormity of the sacrifice and loss that we honor and remember. I have come to realize that we, your inadequate speakers, in some sense have the deck stacked against us.  We are up against eternity.  We are speaking of loss inalterable and forever. Our words each year mostly fall short, given their goal. Even eloquent Abraham Lincoln felt it, writing with the terrible insight and burden of a commander in chief approaching that battlefield become a cemetery.  Part of the greatness of the Gettysburg address is its recognition of inadequacy and its pointed brevity.

I too will be brief:  We remember today and honor those who perished on our behalf, who sacrificed themselves to protect us, our nation and our way of life.  They are gone from us forever and so we, to the extent we can claim a hold on forever, are pledged to remember and honor them forever.  And as part of that remembering and honoring, we must, we must make certain that we, the people and cause they died for, remain just and true to the high ideals to which our nation aspires.

Thank you.