Suffolk Reporter

Walter Maresco served in the United States Air Force and attained the rank of Airman First Class. He was stationed in Okinawa, Japan, in the mid-1960s when he volunteered to go to Vietnam, where he served more than a year in Cam Rahn Bay. He felt serving was an honor, and in his own words, “I love my country. I love my family.”

Mr. Maresco is the Commander of Medford's American Legion John R. Cacioppo Post 1848, Sergeant at Arms at VFW Post 2937, and is a Trustee of the Medford Chamber of Commerce.

His actions reflect his words. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Mr. Maresco walked alone in the 2020 Medford Memorial Day parade wearing a combat helmet and green fatigues, carrying a prisoner-of-war/missing-in-action flag. The rest of the parade consisted of a motorcade of police vehicles flashing their lights and blaring their sirens, a fleet of fire trucks, and motorists waving miniature American flags from their open windows. During the mile-long trek on the parade route, he stopped at multiple memorials and saluted.

Mr. Maresco said his fallen comrades were with him: “All the vets we are doing this for are with me, behind me. I made a promise to myself and to them, and to God, for the men who couldn’t come back that each time I would do it.”

Nancy Young of Medford, whose son Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Kremm was killed in a mortar attack during Operation Iraqi Freedom on October 27, 2005, commented on that day’s parade: “Today means everything for him to be remembered. People forget; they tend to forget. And it’s every day for me and every day for a lot of us.” Ms. Young emphasized that freedoms Americans enjoy are because of heroes like her son.