THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING

Rockland man marks the military lives lost

A memorial to soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan has been erected on the front lawn of Dorothy Gramazio's home at 163 Summit St. in Rockland. A memorial to soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan has been erected on the front lawn of Dorothy Gramazio's home at 163 Summit St. in Rockland. (Globe Staff Photo / Pat Greenhouse)
By Matt Collette
Globe Correspondent / May 25, 2009

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For the third year in a row, Dorothy Gramazio's son Robert has created a shrine for the Massachusetts soldiers who died serving in Iraq and Afghanistan in her yard on Summit Street, where Rockland's Memorial Day parade passes by today.

Gramazio has erected an American flag, a 5-by-7-inch photograph, and a white wooden cross with the name and date of death inscribed on a plate for each of the more than 90 men and women from Massachusetts who have died in combat since Sept. 11, 2001 - most for Iraq and some for Afghanistan.

"I talk to so many people," said Robert Gramazio, 48. "So many people ride by my house and stop."

Robert Gramazio, an ironworker who was laid off earlier this year, plans to keep it up until the middle of June, he said. His father, who died almost three decades ago, was a Marine and his younger brother, Peter, is an Army veteran who served tours of duty in Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He said he hopes to honor the other Gold Star families in Massachusetts.

"You know what I really love to see? All 94 parents in my yard," he said. "I'd just say that I didn't forget. I didn't forget your kids."

© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.

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Clarification: A May 25, 2009, Globe article reported on the military’s concerns that private efforts to salvage World War II aircraft, including the plane piloted by Lieutenant Carter Lutes in 1944, hamper attempts to recover the remains of soldiers. The article did not intend to assert or imply that the salvaging of Lieutenant Lutes’s aircraft by Alfred Hagen and Robert Greinert was not authorized by Papua New Guinea authorities or was intended in any way to interfere with the recovery of Lieutenant Lutes’s remains. In addition, while military officials wanted to conduct a thorough forensic investigation of the site before the aircraft was removed in the hopes of conclusively determining whether Lutes survived the crash and to gather further evidence, they acknowledge that Lieutenant Lutes probably did survive the crash and that it is unlikely his remains were at the site. (A letter to the editor on this subject appears here.)