Veterans, others honor fallen comrades in South Boston
South Boston Vietnam veterans joined families and neighbors Sunday at Medal of Honor Park to pay tribute to two generations of military members who gave their lives in service to their country.
During the 42nd annual rededication of the South Boston Vietnam Memorial, erected to honor local neighborhood men who died in the Vietnam War, the crowd of hundreds also witnessed the dedication of a new memorial honoring military members from Boston killed fighting in World War I.
The two wars dealt devastating blows to South Boston — 35 men from the neighborhood died in World War I and more than a half century later 25 were killed in Vietnam.
“This is so important... that we come together to remember, to dedicate, and to ensure that the living legacy [of the service members] will always be here,” Mayor Michelle Wu said during the ceremony.
The new World War I memorial — consisting of two saplings taken from Belleau Wood, where about 1,800 Americans died fighting German forces in France in June 1918 — also pays tribute to members of the US Marine Corps.
Several speakers — including Wu and Ed Flynn, a Navy veteran who serves as the City Council president — evoked the symbolism of the trees from the site of the historic battle incorporated into South Boston’s tribute.
“Although just small trees, they will remind us of the sacrifices these men and their families have made,” Flynn said.
Marine Corps Lieutenant General Christopher Mahoney, deputy commandant for Programs and Resources for the US Marine Corps, who grew up on the South Shore, said there is a “tradition of service” in South Boston.
“When certain danger, even death surrounded them, the choice was clear: When faced with a choice between themselves and their buddies, there was no choice,” Mahoney said of the men who died. “They were raised here in South Boston, they knew no other way.”
The ceremony, as it does every year, also honored the men who died in Vietnam. Scores of South Boston Vietnam veterans — dressed in suits and ties, and wearing red carnations on their lapels —stood throughout Sunday’s ceremony.
Even as rain began to trickle, then pour from the sky, the veterans carried out their duties. As the name of each fallen Vietnam service member was read aloud, a veteran walked up and place a flower at the foot of the memorial.
Many of those veterans stepped back then and saluted the dark granite monument.
Among the veterans who attended the ceremony was Danny Marotta, 76, of South Boston, who served in Vietnam from August 1967 to May 1971 with the US Air Force.
The memorial is deeply personal for him, as he grew up with the men who were recognized on the memorial.
“Everybody on that wall is a face that I know and a friend,” he said. He visits the memorial a few times every week, said Marotta, a longtime employee of WBZ-TV News.
“We all know these guys. And that’s what friendship is all about,” he said. “That is what the service teaches you — to be concerned about the guy next to you, rather than yourself.”