McKeesport boys and girls club honors ‘The LaRosa 11’
By JEFF STITT
jstitt@yourmvi.com
Eleven men who grew up playing sports at the LaRosa Boys and Girls Club of McKeesport, and who would later lose their lives while fighting during the Vietnam War, were honored at the club Monday.
Pfc. Norman “Boots” Wallace Johnson, Pfc. Michael Joseph Nemchick, Pfc. James Francis Brooks Jr., Pfc. Tyrone Gregory Burse, Pfc. James Edward West, Lance Cpl. Gregory Francis Popowitz, Spc. Curtis Taylor Gay, Lance Cpl. Thomas “Jitters” James Sweeney, Pfc. Louis Howard Huff II and Spc. John Alan Germek Jr., all of McKeesport, and Spc. Lee Daniel Thomas of Elizabeth were honored.
Together, the group of men is known in McKeesport as “The LaRosa 11.”
Founder of the club, the late Sam LaRosa, dedicated a granite monument at the club on Veterans Day 1966 to honor five LaRosa Club members killed in Vietnam.
By March 1969, another six names were added to the memorial.
The 11 club members were killed within a 40-month period. When LaRosa dedicated the monument, he told the families that he was doing it to “honor my boys.”
Twice a year for the past 52 years, on Memorial Day and on Veterans Day, the club has invited the families of the 11, as well as local officials, past and present members of the club and McKeesport residents to pay tribute to the ultimate sacrifice that each of the men made. Joined by McKeesport Mayor Michael Cherepko, city administrator Tom Maglicco and several members of the McKeesport fire and police departments, LaRosa executive director Jim Barry welcomed them all again this year and thanked them for coming.
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