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Vietnam Veterans Remembrance Day

Vets say they come to Joseph Warren Park ‘to feel peace’

Times Observer photo by Stacey Gross - Dick McCorrison (US Army) and Walt Simpson (US Air Force) hang an American Flag in General Joseph Warren Park Wednesday morning in observance of Vietnam Veterans Remembrance Day.

“This is hallowed ground,” Walt Simpson said, standing behind the Vietnam veterans’ memorial at General Joseph Park Wednesday afternoon. He and Dick McCorrison, both Vietnam veterans themselves, were there to hang an American flag on one of the park’s three empty flag poles.

The park is one of many places in Warren bearing the names of county residents who’ve answered the call to serve in the United States military, said McCorrison. And though it’s technically city property, and therefore the responsibility of the city to maintain, McCorrison and Simpson both made it clear that General Joseph Warren Park is not just someplace for recreation.

“Many local veterans,” said McCorrison, “many may have had a friend die in their arms. They come here to feel peace.” Peace, said McCorrison, can be a hard thing for a veteran to come by, at times. The park, he said, is a place revered by veterans, county natives or not, as are all places set aside to honor men and women of the United States military.

Both McCorrison and Simpson were sad at the state of the memorials in General Joseph Warren Park, they said. “There are seventeen names on there of the men who were killed who were from Warren County,” said McCorrison, pointing to the Vietnam memorial that faces Pennsylvania Avenue in the park. One, Sgt. John G. Gertsch, was presented the Congressional Medal of Honor. That was not, said McCorrison, an award given in great numbers, particularly during the Vietnam conflict. Gertsch was presented with the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest military honor attainable, for providing covering fire for a medic working on a wounded soldier in the A Shau Valley in July of 1969.

McCorrison and Simpson were dismayed that there are no longer flags flown at General Joseph Warren Park, where McCorrison said there used to be a United States, a Pennsylvania, and a POW/MIA flag flown in front of the Vietnam memorial.

Director of Public Works Mike Holtz said that all of the parks in the city are officially opened during the month of April. Flags, he said, will go up on April 14 and restrooms and all amenities at local parks will be operational by the third week of April.

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