General rises from Brighton to White House
When a fledgling group wanted to build a memorial to honor military service members from Massachusetts killed since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, they asked Brighton native John F. Kelly to be the star attraction at their first fund-raiser.
The US Marine Corps general delivered that night in December 2010, showing up in his dress blues at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center and giving a powerful speech about the lost service members and the Gold Star families that loved them.
Kelly never mentioned to the grieving crowd that he had just become one of them. Three weeks before, a bomb had killed his son in Afghanistan.
“He was probably torn up inside,” said Chris Lessard, a Newton firefighter and Marine veteran who served in Iraq and is an organizer with Massachusetts Fallen Heroes, the nonprofit that invited Kelly to speak. “That was my first impression of General John Kelly. Could you find a classier person? He’s a great man.”
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