CARIBOU, Maine — A large group gathered at the Northern Maine Veterans Cemetery to send balloons skyward in honor of lives lost at war.
The concept for the event came from Irma Anderson, who received a letter from her father 72 years ago stating that he would not be able to come home for Christmas.
Anderson kept the letter and decided to attach a response in a balloon, with the intent of releasing it to heaven.
“When I shared my letter with a friend,” said Anderson, “he said, ‘Why not share this with everyone?’ and this is what happened.”
Anderson’s father, Clovis Jandreau, returned home from the Army two years after he wrote the letter and lived until 1986.
“This is such an honor for not just my Dad, but for all the military, past and present, who served our country and made us free today,” said Anderson.
With roughly 20 others, Anderson released her balloon into the sky, praying that it reached a departed loved one.
“The idea sparked last summer,” said Anderson, “but since my father’s letter was sent near Christmas on Dec. 22, we decided to do it in December. It would be nice if this were an annual event. It was a wonderful, nice sunny day. God is good; you can’t ask for anything better.”
“It’s a nice ceremony,” said Clarence McLaughlin, Commander of the Disabled Veterans Chapter 10 in Presque Isle. “I sent a balloon up myself. We’re hoping that somebody up there in heaven will nab one of Irma’s balloons. We know that whoever we wrote to, we will meet them in heaven someday. We thank Irma for everything she did today.”
Though Anderson and other participants had good intentions, some were upset by the negative environmental impact caused by releasing balloons attached to plastic bags by a ribbon. The Environmental Protection Agency barred the National Weather Service from participating in the event and donating a large weather balloon.
Members of Balloons Blow, an environmental organization dedicated to providing “information to educate people about the destructive effects released balloons have on animals, people and the environment,” agreed with the EPA’s assessment.
Sandra Blanco–Halvorsen included a hashtag representing the organization in a comment written on Caribou Police Department’s Facebook page Saturday afternoon.
“Please do not allow the release of balloons with plastic bags tied to ribbon at the Veterans Cemetery,” Blanco–Halvorsen wrote. “They will blow out to the oceans, wildlife will get entangled in the ribbons and they will mistake the balloons and plastic bags for edible jellyfish. What goes up, must come down — they will not reach the heavens or those we’ve lost. Littering and endangering wildlife is no way to remember our honored veterans. Just imagine your balloon and letter in its plastic baggy wrapped around the neck of some poor bird. Blow bubbles, not balloons. Write and share notes to loved ones on social media so that others can read them and know the fallen soldier you grieve for.”
