American Legion Post 54 of Wiscasset observed Memorial Day in a service at the town’s memorial wall Monday with wreaths also laid by the Daughters of the American Revolution and Veterans of Foreign Wars.

The service drew more people than Wiscasset Church of the Nazarene senior pastor and Wiscasset Police Department chaplain Wally Staples had seen in the service’s last 10 years. “That tells me that respect for veterans and the sacrifice of the fallen has become important again.”

At least 75 people attended on the gray, chilly morning. Many wore bright red poppies and flag pins, T-shirts and hats.

“We’ve gotten used to the idea that this holiday is about barbecues and summer parties. But it is really a time for America to pay respect to our fallen soldiers,” Staples said after delivering a short history of Memorial Day, originally Decoration Day and begun after the Civil War.

Staples spoke World War I Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Field” and spoke “God Bless the U.S.A.,” the country song Lee Greenwood made famous.

Following a memorial gun salute, the crowd was invited back to the Legion Hall for coffee and donuts.