FREEHOLD – The borough will hold its 142nd annual Memorial Day parade on May 30 and the sacrifice made by those who lost their lives in service to the country will be honored by participants and those who gather to pay their respects.
Activities in Freehold Borough will begin at 8:30 a.m. with the Elks Point Service of Reflection honoring American servicemen and servicewomen who lost their lives defending the country. The ceremony will take place at Elks Point at the intersection of Broadway and East Main Street.
The parade will begin at 9:45 a.m. at Brinckerhoff Avenue and West Main Street. A flag-draped casket will be pulled along the parade route and accompanied by active military personnel from several branches of the armed forces. Veterans groups will step off at 10 a.m., to be followed by the rest of the parade participants.
According to Borough Councilman George Schnurr, who will serve as the master of ceremonies for the Elks Point Service of Reflection, the Freehold Memorial Day parade is New Jersey’s longest running parade of its kind and Monmouth County’s largest such parade, with an average of more than 70 units participating each year.
“The Freehold Memorial Day Parade is one of the signature events of our community,” Schnurr said. “When this streak of 142 parades honoring our servicemen and servicwomen started, there were only 37 states in our nation. That shows how long this has been going on.”
The lead organization for the parade is Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4374. The grand marshal will be Walter Kowalsky, 90, a World War II Navy veteran.
Kowalsky lived in New York City until he moved to Freehold in 1967. He served in the Navy from September 1943 until December 1945 and reached the rank of Sonarman First Class.
Kowalsky was assigned to two ships in the Atlantic Ocean: the USS Roy O. Hale, a destroyer escort, for 18 months, and the USS Noa, a destroyer, for five months, according to parade organizers.