The first and last pictures were taken at the beach in Santa Barbara adjacent to the pier. There is a veterans group that started putting a cross and candle for every military person killed in Iraq and Afghanistan .
The amazing thing is that the group only does this on weekends. They put up this simulated graveyard Friday and take it down Sunday evening.  Guys sleep in the sand next to the pier to keep watch at night so nobody can destroy their graveyard.  Every cross has the name, rank, Date of Birth and Date of Death of someone who has passed.

This display is very moving and very powerful???
What is interesting is there are so many young volunteers and many 30 to 40 year olds as well. Amazing! 

Hicksville Vietnam War Era Memorial

Another strong month by one of our Alumni working with the Archivist at the Hicksville Public Library produced 122 new names in December, for a new total of 1,022, which surpasses the 1.000 name milestone!!  December is another short month due to the Christmas and New Year Holidaysand travel plans to see family, I am actually writing this on December 18^th.  More names continue to come in from the work at the Library and the continuing contributions of our entire Alumni.

Jay Tranchina of the Project Team is coordinating our fundraising efforts in Hicksville .  We will likely announce our Fundraising plans after the first of the year.  Memorial design and site selection discussions are still continuing.

Memorial Qualifications:  A person must have been on active duty in one of our Armed Forces during the Vietnam Era.  The person did not necessarily have to serve in Vietnam , because by being in service at that time he or she faced the possibility of being sent to Vietnam and was an integral part of strengthening our Armed Forces during a time of war. 

Overall qualifications include:

• must have been a resident of Hicksville at some time before entering our Armed Forces
• must have attended a public, private or parochial high school while living in Hicksville (attendance at HHS not required)
• must have served on active duty anywhere in the world during America 's Vietnam Era (1961-1973 per the www.vietnamwar.com history timeline)
• Both men and women qualify (We're stating this as we still have very few women on the current list)

While we have accumulated 1,022 names, we know there are still many more who served and meet these qualifications, but have yet to be identified.  Rough estimates indicate we should be able to collect between 2 and 3 thousand names.  We have access to official records in Washington , D.C. but have found that many people left Hicksville before entering the service and show a different town or city as their home at the time of entry.  So, we need to continue this grass roots effort and will also continue to use official records as a means of confirmation of all personnel on the list. 

Our Project Team consists of the following members:

·        Ken Strafer, Founder (HHS '62)

·        Joe Carfora, Master List (HHS '62)

·        Carl Probst, Input Data, Class of '59 & Others (HHS '59)

·        Tony Plonski, Input Data, Class of '64 & Others (HHS '64)

·        Tommy Sullivan, Press Release Editing (HHS '63)

·        Walter Schmidt, Hicksville Local Coordinator & Town of Oyster Bay Veterans Services Officer (HHS '65)

·        Joe Ingino, Veterans Advocate, Hicksville & Long Island (HHS '67)

·        Jay Tranchina, Input Data, Class of '64 & Others, plus local press contact (HHS 1964)

·        Bill Walden, Commander of Hicksville VFW Post (HHS '65)                                                   

Here's what we continue to need from each person reading this to do:

Please click on the following link and review the current list of names: Click Here.

If you know of someone who is not listed, or if you have information to clarify/correct data shown in red and/or with a question mark, please send what you have to Joe Carfora at jcarfora1@nc.rr.com.  Please use the information contained on the current list as a guide for the data we need.

Please also note that with the tremendous growth of our list in the past few months it is now more important than ever for interested Alumni to review the list of classmates names with the hope of supplying us with the information we are still missing next to the names of many individuals.  The missing information is marked in red on the spreadsheet to make it simpler to see what's needed.

Thank you!  

The Vietnam War Era Memorial Project Team

Footnote extracted from www.vietnamwar.com:  During 15 years of military involvement, over 2 million Americans served in Vietnam with 500,000 seeing actual combat. 47,244 were killed in action, including 8000 airmen. There were 10,446 non-combat deaths. 153,329 were seriously wounded, including 10,000 amputees. Over 2400 American POWs/MIAs were unaccounted for as of 1973.