As we approach Memorial Day, an American holiday, observed on the last Monday of May, honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Memorial Day 2020 occurs on Monday, May 25, my thoughts go back to my youth during WW II.In June of 1942, I was 8 years old and happy to see my hero, my cousin & Godfather, Matt Byrne, when he dropped by my house a day or two after he graduated from Notre Dame. I was surprised to see him in a Navy uniform and learned he was headed to Florida to become a Dive Bomber pilot.
The next time I saw him was 6 months later in December, when he was in a coffin. He died in a Dive Bomber.
Matt’s brother, my cousin Tom, later became a Jesuit Priest and enlisted in the Army as a Chaplain. Below is a short story about him.And my late brother, Joseph, and I kept the family military tradition going up to the 60’s.
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It has falling to me, the very last family member of that generation to remind my children of what that generation did, as well as what all the martyrs of the 3 succeeding wars did and are doing.I am hoping to do so by helping to create a “Living Memorial” to those who never came home, from this war and all the wars that followed.
A group of volunteers, mostly veterans, are using the last 7-acre parcel of the world’s largest WWII Port of Embarkation, Camp Shanks, “Last Stop USA”, more than 2,000 acres involving Blauvelt, Orangeburg & Tappan, to help eliminate veteran homelessness in the Mid-Hudson Valley. The name of the “Living Memorial is “Rockland Homes for Heroes”. You can read all about it by visiting www.rocklandhomesforheroes.org
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We are not alone in this mission. A perfect example is John H. Secor American Legion Post in Pearl River, which weekly delivers food gathered by the GAA to the homes of the 8 veterans currently living in the first 8 Supportive Apartments we built. And this is not the first help we have received from other American Legion Post all over the County. Veterans serving other veterans means a great deal more than is expressed.
