City Commemorates Veteran's Day with Physically-Distanced Wreath Laying

The Post Commander of Portsmouth Frank E. Booma Post 6 of the American Legion reports that instead of the usual Veterans Day ceremonies this year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Veterans Day will be commemorated with a wreath-laying at the Soldiers & Sailors Monument in Goodwin Park.

Post Commander Frank Desper, who is also president of the Central Veterans Council, explained that while the Governor’s “Safer At Home” protocols are still in place, the commemoration will not include the usual gathering of numbers of people, speakers or the Portsmouth High School Clipper Band.

“We will be laying a wreath at 11 am in Goodwin Park as always,” Post Commander Desper said.

Veterans Day is observed at the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, to mark the moment the armistice silenced the guns in 1918, ending World War I. Frank Booma of Portsmouth, for whom the Post is named, was killed in France in July 1918; and the Post was formed in 1919 by Portsmouth veterans of that war.