View
the full photo
gallery.
Honoring Northeastern’s heroes
University dedicates veterans memorial
Nov. 11, 2006 — With ruffles and flourishes, tears
and applause, Northeastern dedicated its new veterans memorial Saturday
in a ceremony attended by more than 300 alumni, family, friends, university
officials and veterans from across New England.
“The university embraces its veterans, embraces the armed forces and embraces service to the nation,” said President Joseph Aoun in introductory remarks. “This memorial today is no accident.”
The black granite monument featuring the names, on dog-tag-like metal plaques, of the 278 Northeastern alumni and students who died in uniform, from World War I through the current Iraq War.
Trustees chairman Neal Finnegan ’61 pointed out the name of Felix Del Greco, a student and Army National Guard sergeant who was killed by a bomb in Baghdad in April 2004. His sister, Alexa, works at the School of Nursing, and Finnegan recalled her remarks earlier this year: “Her brother died for something worthwhile, and we have to thank him for it.”
Finnegan offered his thanks to Del Greco, as well as to “the other 277 Northeastern heroes on our wall.”
Vice Adm. Mark Fitzgerald ’73, a naval aviator who fought in the 1991 Gulf War, recalled his days at Northeastern, when the Reserve Officer Training Corps on campus included 1,600 undergraduates.
(Northeastern’s contingent is still in the largest in New England, Aoun noted in earlier remarks.)
ROTC, he said, is “about leadership … (and) that’s what we produce here at Northeastern University.” Longtime trustee Richard Egan ’61, who served in Korea, said he was proud to honor those who “put their lives on hold to answer the call to duty.”
He reflected on the days in World War II when the U.S. government “took over our School of Engineering” and built barracks on campus to speed the training of officers.
Egan introduced five military personnel who laid wreathes on the monument and read representative biographies from each of five major conflicts in which Northeastern alumni were lost.
ROTC Cadet Michael Lopez ’08 honored Joseph Hickey ’18, who died in France the year of his graduation. Retired Air Force Col. John Luongo ’48 spoke about Cedric Coleman ’38, who went down with the USS Indianapolis in the Pacific in July 1945. Leo Lazo ’51 read of Joseph Matonis ’36, killed in action in South Korea in September 1950.
Joseph Roffi and Paul Duffey ’01, who both work in the university’s facilities division, laid the Vietnam War wreath in honor of James McGarry ’68, a Boston Globe reporter who joined the Marines and was killed leading a patrol in South Vietnam in September 1969. And ROTC Cadet Jonathan Janiac ’08, laid the wreath for Del Greco.
Russell Baker, 106 years old, a Massachusetts man who served in the Navy during World War I and the Army during World War II, attended the ceremony as an honored guest, as did veterans and officers of the Massachusetts Army National Guard.
Music was provided by the Air National Guard Band of the Northeast, the Northeastern Down Beats, and bagpiper Kathryn Tasso ’07.
— Jim Chiavelli
The Northeastern Voice