New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Wooster Square’s Vietnam hero honored
Plaque placed on arch; ceremony May 29
NEW HAVEN — The only surviving son of Anne and Anthony Zambrano, Bernard Zambrano was a model of a young man, according to his relatives.
On Monday, a plaque was installed on the Little Italy arch on Wooster Street, honoring the only known casualty of the Vietnam War from the Wooster Square neighborhood.
But a gap in his college education — he was studying to be a teacher at Southern Connecticut State College — made Zambrano eligible for the draft in 1968 and he was sent to Vietnam.
“It was just all these fluke things that happened,” said his cousin, Paul Naclerio of Oceanside, Calif.
U.S. Rep. Robert Giaimo, D-3, tried to bring him stateside, Naclerio said. But Bernard Zambrano was fatally wounded March 17, 1969, by a mortar shell in Bien Hao province, according to Rich Biondi, the unofficial Wooster Street historian. He had been in Vietnam 65 days. He is buried in St. Lawrence Cemetery.
“He was an allAmerican boy,” said Naclerio, whose mother was sister to Zambrano’s mother, Anne San Marco Zambrano. “You couldn’t ask for someone else. He was an Eagle Scout, hard a parochial education, was going to be a teacher.”
Zambrano, who lived on Humphrey, Greene and Lyon streets, was a student teacher at the old Lee High School. “There was this hiccup, a gap in his education,” Naclerio said. “There was a period when he wasn’t in school and that’s how he became
eligible.” This was despite being the only surviving child. His brother had died in infancy.
“They still said he had to go,” said Naclerio, who was 15 when Zambrano died. “There was no way he could have circumvented it. He wasn't going to go to Canada like the rest of the people. He wasn't that kind of guy.”
He said Zambrano gave
him his bicycle, a Columbia with ribbons, bells and a raccoon tail, all popular in the 1960s.
Naclerio wasn't able to attend Monday's installation but will be in New Haven for a ceremony on May 29 to honor Zambrano. The plaque was affixed to the brick arch on Wooster Street Monday to accommodate members of the family who can't make it May 29 and because it's on a Sunday, when the installer wouldn't be working, according to Jane Scarpellino, who, with Biondi,
has been trying to identify additional Wooster Square war dead who have yet to be honored.
There are three plaques in the area, including one on the arch, that honor those that gave their lives in World War II. She said they hope to add Alfonso Cappuccio, who died in World War I and are trying to identify the address of Larry Ornato who died in World War II.
Scarpellino said she would like to revive an annual tradition in which Wooster Square war dead
would be honored. “Rosa [DeLauro] would show up and there was a band and a salute and it was an event to honor the solders the forge the neighborhood together,” she said.
Rosalie Porrello of East Haven, a cousin, said of Zambrano, “He was so much fun and a really smart man. I knew he was going to be some professional.” He was “very kind, very respectful.” She said she would see Zambrano at Sunday dinners and holidays.
Lisa Naclerio of North Haven, who said she was Zambrano's youngest cousin, said, “I remember that when he passed. my mom and I were at his house at my Aunt Anne's house on Lyon Street. For probably six months she would drop my sister off. I'm the youngest of seven. … So I can just remember being there and you know the way it was and no one ever went in that room, his bedroom. She left it. It was always the way it was. No one was allowed in it.”