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View Full Version : Make it a sign of his times - Capt John McKenna



marinemom
04-26-07, 03:48 PM
Celebrate brave life of Marine hero

BY DENIS HAMILL
DAILY NEWS COLUMNIST

Thursday, April 26th 2007, 4:00 AM

Make it a sign of his times.

When they change E. Second St. in Kensington, Brooklyn, to Capt. John J. McKenna Way at noon on Saturday, May 19, maybe people who never had the privilege to know him will ask about him.

Maybe they will ask why McKenna had to die Aug. 16 from sniper fire in a place called Fallujah in Iraq, trying to save a fellow soldier named Lance Cpl. Michael Glover, of Garden City, both of the 2nd Battalion of the 25th Marines, 4th Division, Fox Company, a reserve unit based in Albany near where McKenna worked as a state trooper.

Last year, before Thanksgiving, I asked McKenna's father, John McKenna 3rd, a math teacher, if his son believed in the mission in Iraq in which he died. "He believed in his men," said his father.

"When he served in Afghanistan he believed in the mission as a payback for Sept. 11. When he was transferred to Kuwait before his unit was sent into the initial invasion of Iraq he called me and said, 'Dad, why are we going in here? This is all BS. We got this guy Saddam in a box, both in the north and south fly zones. I don't understand why we're doing this.' But he went for his men, not for some great mission. But when he got there, he really felt for those Iraqi people, especially the kids."

After his name goes up on the sign on E. Second St., if one Brooklyn kid stops and asks about Capt. John J. McKenna and learns of the folly of this "BS" war in Iraq, then McKenna will have lived on in that kid's life by helping to steer him or her away from death at a young age in this or some future war of political choice, concocted by arrogant politicians whose own kids never seem to serve or die or have streets named for them at age 30.

So make this a sign of his times.

For McKenna's name on that street sign should not be another grave marker. He already has one of those, over which his mother, Karen, weeps.

No, let Capt. John J. McKenna's name on that sign on that Brooklyn lamppost be the byline of his proud biography that tells us about the special life John J. McKenna led. Not a reminder of his death in a lost war that took him from friends and family and from all of us who would have benefited from having a good and brave and selfless man sharing this world with us.

When the summer sun shines on that sign let it reflect that McKenna was raised on this working class block, a burly redhead who towered two-sewer homers in countless games of stickball, a kid who played "soldiers" with his Brooklyn childhood buddies like Joseph Fonti, who would later become a priest.

Let it tell us that McKenna went to Immaculate Heart of Mary School, Bishop Ford High, and became a Boy Scout and later an Eagle Scout, before joining the New York State Troopers and the United States Marine Forces Reserves.

As the sign bearing his name drips with spring rain let it remind us that McKenna was baptized, received First Holy Communion and Confirmation a few blocks away at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church.

When snow falls on that sign let it shiver with the chilling irony that his old buddy, the Rev. Joseph Fonti, would wind up saying McKenna's Requiem Mass in that same church.

Listen to the sign rattle in the Brooklyn autumn winds and listen to his father speak of his son he will never see again, and about the scholarship fund he has established in his name. "John championed the underdog, always helped people who couldn't help themselves. Which was confirmed by the guys in his unit that I talked to. He went out instinctively to get Mike Glover who was actually dead at the time, and that's when John got hit.

"John always believed in giving back to those who helped him. So we are going to hold a series of fund-raisers to establish a scholarship fund in my son's honor so that his death will have lasting purpose."

Come and be part of his street-naming ceremony, on the corner of Greenwood Ave. and E. Second St. at noon on May 19, and join the USMC, VFW, Catholic War Vets and NYS Trooper Honor Guards, and the Boy and Girl Scouts, and the NYPD Pipe and Drum Band, and sing along with the national anthem as they enshrine this Brooklyn patriot's name on Capt. John J. McKenna Way.

But instead of mourning his death, celebrate the short, sweet, courageous life of Capt. John J. McKenna.

Make it a sign of his times.


This is personal - Captain McKenna's dad and I were in school together - and I am proud that our Brooklyn has recognized his son's life and commitment to his country.