Officer Dic Donohue, Veterans Honored at Veterans Day Ceremony

Standing in front of the memorials of the foreign wars, the Town of Winchester saluted their veterans on Monday, November 11.

Lynch Elementary School students, William Baker, Jules Darrigo, Ella Wentworth, Kevin Suffriendini each spoke about the Lynch Brothers, the namesake of the school who both died in WWII.

The keynote speaker was Winchester native Officer Dic Donohue, the MBTA officer who was wounded in the Watertown shootout with Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the alleged Boston Marathon Bombers on April 19, 2013.

“My grandfather spoke at the Veterans Day ceremony every year,” Donohue said. “My brother spoke at the Memorial Day ceremony. I didn’t know about that because I was still in the hospital.”

Donohue said that many veterans visited him in the hospital, including Illinois Representative Tammy Duckworth, who lost her legs and damaged her right arm in combat in Iraq while serving in the Army. “She came as a stateswoman and as a veteran to share her story,” Donohue said. “She was very inspirational to me and the other people she visited at Spaulding Rehab.”

Donohue served in the military but never saw combat. When Winchester Patch asked if he considered the events in Watertown to be combat, he said: “I can’t take away from what our soldiers experience over seas. Those guys see combat every day. But I guess the events in Watertown are as close as you can get. I won’t put that anywhere near Afghanistan or Iraq. But many people on sight were military vets.”  

Donohue said that he has a long way to go to recover from the bullet wound he sustained in his leg. He said that returning to work a police officer is something that is further down the line for him while he learns how to deal with pain and pain management. "It's a slow process, but I'm making strides with it."

Town Officials, the Board of Selectmen, the Winchester High School Band, Veterans from various wars and students each participated in the ceremony. See the photo gallery and upload your own Veterans Day Photos to Winchester Patch.