McKeesport honors fallen veterans
By JEFF STITT
jstitt@yourmvi.com
Complying with pandemic restrictions that kept crowds to 25 or fewer, the City of McKeesport on Monday carried on with its annual tradition of saluting fallen veterans for Memorial Day.
City officials, McKeesport Veterans Committee members, Democratic state Rep. Austin Davis, McKeesport AMVETS Post 8 Cmdr. Tom Bergan, veterans including Purple Heart recipients Jerry Turkowski and Eugene Cherepko, former Allegheny County Councilman Larry Dunn and a few McKeesport firefighters participated in or observed the remembrance ceremony at Memorial Park on Lysle Boulevard.
Then they headed to the LaRosa Boys and Girls Club of McKeesport to join the families of The LaRosa 11 for a separate ceremony.
The LaRosa 11 are a group of 11 men who were members of the LaRosa Club and perished in service to their country during the Vietnam War.
The late Sam LaRosa, who founded the club, dedicated a granite monument at the club on Veterans Day 1966 to honor five members killed in Vietnam. By March 1969, another six names had been added to the memorial.
When LaRosa dedicated the monument, he told the families that he was doing it to “honor my boys.”
Twice a year for the past 53 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.
This year, to ensure the crowd of spectators was kept below the 25 mark, the ceremony — which is typically attended by several dozen people — was not open to the public.
“This is a very special day for me,” said Jim Barry Jr., LaRosa Club’s director of Strategic Initiatives and Outreach. “When this whole COVID thing hit, my first thought honestly was ‘What are we going to do for Memorial Day?’
“That’s the first thing that hit me. I’ve been thinking about it since March. I wasn’t going to let it fall by the wayside.”
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