Hicksville Vietnam War Era Memorial

Twenty new names in August brings our current total to 1,592, very close to the 1,600 name milestone!  We also made great progress in reducting the large gap that still exists in missing data.  As in the past, you can continue to help this effort by scanning the list of names using your class year or years you may be familiar with as a reference to see if you have a name or some missing data to add.  Class years, where known, are specifically shown to make this effort easier for all our readers.

We are excited to announce that Bill Walden, Commander of the Hicksville VFW Post and a member of our Project Team, has agreed to lead our Site Selection & Approval and Fundraising efforts.  He will be reaching out to other local team members in the next month to help him with these efforts.  Bill's terrific experience in other efforts of this type and his knowledge of the government and school officials who can help us get the job done will be a tremendous asset to this work.

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 (February,1961-April,1973)
  • Both men and women qualify (We're stating this since, while recently adding a number of women, we still have relatively few on the current list overall)

While we have now accumulated 1,592 names, there are still more people out there who served and meet the above qualifications, but have yet to be identified.  Rough estimates made at the beginning of this project indicate we should be able to collect between 2 and 3 thousand names, so we are closer to that goal.  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 to review the current list of names:  Click here.

If you know of someone who is not listed, or if you have information we are still missing, 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.

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.

To access a huge list of veteran related websites that offer assistance, visit http://buffalobobcasale.com