Weymouth Veterans and Gold Star Families Center 2026 Memorial Day on Personal Loss

WEYMOUTH — May 25, 2026 — Weymouth held its 2026 Memorial Day Observance indoors Monday after weather forced a last-minute venue change, centering the ceremony on personal testimony from two Weymouth military families. Marine Corps veteran Nick Rizzo delivered an extended tribute to three fallen comrades — Seth Sharp of Adairsville, Georgia, Nick Exaros of Yarmouth, and Weymouth's own Andrew Farrar, killed in Iraq on January 28, 2005 — and described how their memories arrive not at formal ceremonies but in ordinary moments of fatherhood. Andrew Farrar, the fallen Marine's father, read a poem he said he writes each year on his son's birthday and noted that Farrar's two sons, Liam and Tyler, both went on to become Marines. Town Council President Arthur Matthews and Mayor Michael Melisse addressed the crowd; Melisse cited 265 names on the town's Veterans Memorial Wall and traced Weymouth's sacrifice from 16 Revolutionary War dead — out of a population under 1,500 — through the present day. A roll call of 60 Weymouth veterans lost since last Memorial Day was read aloud, each name followed by "absent," including Alfred Langevin, the World War II serviceman whose remains were returned to Weymouth last November after 81 years.