Honors for a veteran


Article Launched: 01/26/2007 08:30:13 AM EST


Disabled United States Marine veteran David Paradis of Townsend lost his battle with Lou Gehrig's disease this month. He was laid to rest in a private Pepperell cemetery plot last Saturday with military honors.

He had asked that the service be kept simple. Nevertheless a sizable crowd gathered reflecting a cross section of the community, from family members to Townsend firefighters in dress uniform.

Paradis was a member of Pepperell VFW Post 3291, whose firing team and chaplain took part in services.

Particularly important to David was the presence of the flag and Marines. His son, Bret, a Marine Corps lieutenant, made sure that happened. Three senior enlisted members of the 25th Marine Regiment from Devens, all Iraqi war veterans, did the honors.

Standing in uniform beside Paradis's wife, Patty, and his brother, Michael (a Townsend firefighter), Bret had the heartbreaking task of standing tall and saluting as the flag that draped his father's coffin was carefully folded and "Taps" was played. David's father and


a brother are veterans as well.
As he had when he was a severely-wounded "tunnel rat" in Vietnam, Paradis continued his struggle to live as his body began shutting down last year. An avid outdoorsman, his quiet request to be able to travel outside his home in a wheelchair became, once discovered, a well-publicized effort by Townsend and Pepperell VFWs to build him a long, wooden access ramp.

Paradis was too sick to fully enjoy the ramp, although it reportedly aided EMTs who were often called to his home.

Patty told Pepperell VFW past commander and fellow Marine, Tony Saboliauskas, that hours before her husband died, he had asked her to take him outside on the wooden ramp so he could see the stars.

Veterans who were involved in the ramp project can take at least some comfort in knowing that David knew people cared.

Bret said one of his father's last words was "Marines."

Semper Fi, David.

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Mildred E. "Randy" Riggs, a retired public health nurse, died Tuesday of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, at her Odenton home. She was 76.
Born Mildred Marando in New York City, she was raised in Delmar, Del., where her parents ran a motel.

She was a 1948 Delmar High School graduate and its class valedictorian. She then moved to Baltimore, where she attended Union Memorial Hospital's School of Nursing and earned her diploma in 1951.

She was a public health nurse who traveled throughout the city from a base in West Baltimore. She treated and identified cases of tuberculosis, among other illnesses.

From 1980 to 1995, she served as a clinic staff director for the Anne Arundel County Health Department, first at the Meade Village Center and then at the Odenton Health Center.

Services will be held at 2 p.m. tomorrow at Epiphany Episcopal Church, 1419 Odenton Road, Odenton.

Survivors include a son, Robert R. Riggs of Berkeley, Calif.; a daughter, Laura Riggs of Odenton; and three grandchildren. Her huband of nearly 30 years, Joe R. Riggs, who owned a roof truss business, died in 1985.