{"id":340,"date":"2004-11-11T21:11:26","date_gmt":"2004-11-12T03:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=340"},"modified":"2004-11-11T21:11:50","modified_gmt":"2004-11-12T03:11:50","slug":"a-veterans-day-farewell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=340","title":{"rendered":"A Veterans Day Farewell"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"InA day of remembrance and gratitude to those who served honorably turned to a day of tragedy, as a veteran was lost<\/a> while preparing to serve again.<\/p>\n

An 80-year-old veteran of World War II was killed Thursday morning when a van backed over him as he prepared to march in a Veterans Day parade.<\/p>\n

Witnesses said William Hammond, captain of the parade’s color guard, was lining up with fellow veterans at the start of the parade route when the van struck him.<\/p>\n

The van, owned by the local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter, was driven by a close friend of Hammond. He was taken to a hospital to be treated for emotional distress.<\/p>\n

“It’s devastating,” said Richard Slowey, adjutant of VFW Post 697. “Bill is a very warm and very kind person.”<\/p>\n

The Army veteran, who served in the infantry, had fought in the Battle of the Bulge, according to Robert Wessa, the post’s junior vice commander. He was a past commander of the post and stayed active, traveling to a school with Wessa last week to talk about Veterans Day.<\/p>\n

Wessa said he was in a different part of the parade and no idea anything had happened until he noticed that a group of marchers hadn’t started.<\/p>\n

A man who answered the phone at Hammond’s house declined to comment. Post members said Hammond owned a contracting business and he and his wife, Irene, had several children.<\/p>\n

Wessa remembered Hammond as a strong leader and good friend. He was still an avid motorcyclist and completed a road trip around Canada and the United States when he was in his late 70s.<\/p>\n

“He was quite a guy,” Wessa said. “It’s a sad day.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thank you, Mr. Hammond, for your service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A day of remembrance and gratitude to those who served honorably turned to a day of tragedy, as a veteran was lost while preparing to serve again. An 80-year-old veteran of World War II was killed Thursday morning when a van backed over him as he prepared to march in a Veterans Day parade. Witnesses […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}