By CASSIE DLG FEJERAN
\nSpecial to the Saipan Tribune<\/p>\n
Veterans, government officials, families, and friends trooped to the American Memorial Park early Sunday morning to witness the unveiling of the Marianas Memorial, a granite edifice dedicated to the Chamorros and Carolinians who have died during the war<\/p>\n
Gov. Juan Babauta, Lt. Gov. Diego Benavente, and Saipan Mayor Juan B. Tudela led the dignitaries that attended the Memorial Mass just before the unveiling of the memorial. <\/p>\n
At the start of the ceremony, members of the CNMI Youth Congress took turns reciting the names of 933 indigenous Chamorro and Carolinian war victims. <\/p>\n
Youth Congress Speaker Alvin \u201cChamp\u201d Fejeran said he feels honored to have been a part of this memorial ceremony. \u201cWe were very willing to [participate] because we were requested by the DCCA and the committee that is handling the 60th commemoration. We were honored to be selected,\u201d said Fejeran. <\/p>\n
The recitation of the 933 names was just the beginning of the memorial ceremony. The youth also played a part in the Mass that took place shortly after the blessing of the memorial by Bishop Thomas A. Camacho. <\/p>\n
Representatives of the Mercedarian Sisters, along with Benavente, removed the mantle to unveil the memorial. Soon after the memorial was unveiled, several doves were set free.<\/p>\n
Father Isaac Ayuyu was on hand to assist Bishop Camacho with the memorial Mass. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Veterans, government officials, families, and friends trooped to the American Memorial Park early Sunday morning to witness the unveiling of the Marianas Memorial, a granite edifice dedicated to the Chamorros and Carolinians who have died during the war<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}