• Keynote speaker Dale Smith Jr. addresses attendees at Jaffrey's Veterans' Day observances on Tuesday morning. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript
    Keynote speaker Dale Smith Jr. addresses attendees at Jaffrey’s Veterans’ Day observances on Tuesday morning. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript
  • Keynote speaker Dale Smith Jr. addresses attendees at Jaffrey's Veterans' Day observances on Tuesday morning. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript
    Keynote speaker Dale Smith Jr. addresses attendees at Jaffrey’s Veterans’ Day observances on Tuesday morning. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript
  • Keynote speaker Dale Smith Jr. addresses attendees at Jaffrey's Veterans' Day observances on Tuesday morning. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript
    Keynote speaker Dale Smith Jr. addresses attendees at Jaffrey’s Veterans’ Day observances on Tuesday morning. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript
  • Retired United States Colonel and interfaith minister Ilona Kwiecen provides the opening prayer. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript
    Retired United States Colonel and interfaith minister Ilona Kwiecen provides the opening prayer. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript
  • Town Manager and Coast Guard veteran Jon Frederick welcomes veterans and residents to the ceremony. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript
    Town Manager and Coast Guard veteran Jon Frederick welcomes veterans and residents to the ceremony. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript
  • The color guard marches in front of the police station to their post. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript
    The color guard marches in front of the police station to their post. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript
  • Selectman and veteran Andy Lawn leads the parade. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript
    Selectman and veteran Andy Lawn leads the parade. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript
  • Veterans march down Main Street in Jaffrey as part of observances on Tuesday morning. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript
    Veterans march down Main Street in Jaffrey as part of observances on Tuesday morning. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript

As the first flurries of the year flew, veterans and residents gathered on the Jaffrey town common on Tuesday for Veterans Day observances.

Retired U.S. Army Col. and interfaith minister Ilona Kwiecen offered opening prayers, and National Guardsman Walt Hautanen and his brother, Coast Guard veteran Alan Hautanen, laid a wreath beneath Jaffrey’s war memorial.

Dale F. Smith Jr., a U.S. Air Force veteran and commander of Jaffrey Memorial VFW Post 5613, was the day’s keynote speaker.

Smith served for four years and eight months as an aircraft rescue firefighter. He was stationed at George Air Force Base in Southern California with the 831st Civil Engineering Squadron, and later served at Osan Air Base in Korea and Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts.

“Veterans’ Day is a day of reflection and gratitude. Across generations, through peace and war, prosperity, hardship, Americans have stepped forward to serve,” Smith said. “They came from farms, they came from cities, they came from factories and they came from schools. They never asked what they might gain from that, but they did what they could to give.”