thedrifter
03-16-09, 04:06 AM
A push to get Staten Island war hero the Medal of Honor
Posted by dbalsamin March 15, 2009 22:50PM
Staten Island Advance/Kacey SemlerThe Marine Corps League held a ceremony honoring Angel Mendez, who died in the Vietnam War. The event was held at Mendez' gravesite at the Old Mount Loretto Cemetery in Pleasant Plains. Mendez grew up at the Mount Loretto orphanage.
The old cemetery at Mount Loretto is a refuge of uncommon serenity, walled off from Hylan Boulevard and the rest of the campus by thick woods, and a sense of history; not that different than it was that day in the spring of 1967, when they brought Angel Mendez home from the jungles of Vietnam, and laid him to rest at the Mount.
The old church, the one everybody knows from "The Godfather," was full to overflowing that day, not big enough to accommodate everyone who wanted to be there, or to hold the grief of the mourners.
"I never saw so many people cry," Victor Calderon was saying as a smaller group of alumni gathered for the annual Marine Corps League service honoring Mendez, who died saving the life of his platoon commander, Ronald Castille, now the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Like Calderon, Mendez was a product of the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin's foster-care program, remembered as a mild-mannered and gifted artist, and serious about his duties as commander of the Mount's cadet corps, because he had a sense they were all going to wind up in Vietnam.
"I never thought about him getting killed," Calderon said. "He was too smart."
And, it turns out, too good.
The citation for Mendez's Navy Cross chronicles his solitary dash across a rice paddy to rescue his seriously wounded lieutenant, all the while exposing himself to the unrelenting enemy fire that brought him down a few yards from safety, still shielding the lieutenant's body with his own.
So, they brought him home to the big church overlooking Hylan Boulevard, and walked across campus to deliver him to history.
"The longest walk of my life," Calderon said.
"We walked everywhere in those days," he said. "But for some reason that day was different.
"I didn't think we'd ever get here."
Now they were back, standing stiffly at attention as a Marine Corps League honor guard fired off three rifle volleys, and a bugler played taps.
The children of the Mount have moved on. More than a few followed Mendez to Vietnam. One of them, Alex Santiago, is buried a few steps away, near Monsignor James J. Kenny, who could've been laid to rest with founder Father John Drumgoole and other directors of the Mount, but asked to be buried near Mendez and Santiago. No greater honor, he figured, than to be with them.
For 30 years, Mount alumni didn't know much about Mendez's military service, except that he came home dead, and he was in the ground back there in the old cemetery with Father Drumgoole and the Staber brothers, Raymond and Stephen, who died in World War One.
Now there's a push, started by Senator Charles Schumer and former Congressman Vito Fosella, and picked up by Michael McMahon, Staten Island's freshman Congressman, to get Mendez the Medal of Honor.
"What we're doing is reviving the initiative to get Angel the medal he clearly deserves," McMahon was saying as he moved among the Marines and Mount alumni gathered in the old cemetery.
"His act of heroism is the type of thing the Medal of Honor was contemplated for, and we're going to leave no stone unturned to get it done."
The America Mendez came home to ... rent by racial and political unrest ... was a world apart from the Mission where he grew up.
"This is what the Mount was about," George Rivera was saying, running a forefinger across an aged photograph, from one teen-aged face to another. "Irish ... Puerto Rican ... black ... Puerto Rican.
"These were your brothers," Rivera said.
When he left Mount Loretto, Rivera was part of the first group of blacks and Hispanics to integrate Marist College. "To me," he said, "it was no big deal, because that was the way I grew up at the Mount. We lived side by side."
He looked up, looked at the black, white and brown faces gathered around him.
"Color had nothing to do with it," Rivera said. Even so, being "a mission kid" may have had its penalties, even in death.
"You wonder if part of Angel's problem was that he didn't have family to act as his advocate," Mike McMahon said.
The Marines were gone now, gone back to their wives and children and grandchildren, back to the kind of lives Angel Mendez never got to live. Some of the Mount alumni hung back, in no hurry to leave.
"It's almost as if he's being punished for coming from the Mount," the Congressman said.
"That should not be allowed to stand."
--- Contributed by Jay Price
Ellie
Posted by dbalsamin March 15, 2009 22:50PM
Staten Island Advance/Kacey SemlerThe Marine Corps League held a ceremony honoring Angel Mendez, who died in the Vietnam War. The event was held at Mendez' gravesite at the Old Mount Loretto Cemetery in Pleasant Plains. Mendez grew up at the Mount Loretto orphanage.
The old cemetery at Mount Loretto is a refuge of uncommon serenity, walled off from Hylan Boulevard and the rest of the campus by thick woods, and a sense of history; not that different than it was that day in the spring of 1967, when they brought Angel Mendez home from the jungles of Vietnam, and laid him to rest at the Mount.
The old church, the one everybody knows from "The Godfather," was full to overflowing that day, not big enough to accommodate everyone who wanted to be there, or to hold the grief of the mourners.
"I never saw so many people cry," Victor Calderon was saying as a smaller group of alumni gathered for the annual Marine Corps League service honoring Mendez, who died saving the life of his platoon commander, Ronald Castille, now the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Like Calderon, Mendez was a product of the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin's foster-care program, remembered as a mild-mannered and gifted artist, and serious about his duties as commander of the Mount's cadet corps, because he had a sense they were all going to wind up in Vietnam.
"I never thought about him getting killed," Calderon said. "He was too smart."
And, it turns out, too good.
The citation for Mendez's Navy Cross chronicles his solitary dash across a rice paddy to rescue his seriously wounded lieutenant, all the while exposing himself to the unrelenting enemy fire that brought him down a few yards from safety, still shielding the lieutenant's body with his own.
So, they brought him home to the big church overlooking Hylan Boulevard, and walked across campus to deliver him to history.
"The longest walk of my life," Calderon said.
"We walked everywhere in those days," he said. "But for some reason that day was different.
"I didn't think we'd ever get here."
Now they were back, standing stiffly at attention as a Marine Corps League honor guard fired off three rifle volleys, and a bugler played taps.
The children of the Mount have moved on. More than a few followed Mendez to Vietnam. One of them, Alex Santiago, is buried a few steps away, near Monsignor James J. Kenny, who could've been laid to rest with founder Father John Drumgoole and other directors of the Mount, but asked to be buried near Mendez and Santiago. No greater honor, he figured, than to be with them.
For 30 years, Mount alumni didn't know much about Mendez's military service, except that he came home dead, and he was in the ground back there in the old cemetery with Father Drumgoole and the Staber brothers, Raymond and Stephen, who died in World War One.
Now there's a push, started by Senator Charles Schumer and former Congressman Vito Fosella, and picked up by Michael McMahon, Staten Island's freshman Congressman, to get Mendez the Medal of Honor.
"What we're doing is reviving the initiative to get Angel the medal he clearly deserves," McMahon was saying as he moved among the Marines and Mount alumni gathered in the old cemetery.
"His act of heroism is the type of thing the Medal of Honor was contemplated for, and we're going to leave no stone unturned to get it done."
The America Mendez came home to ... rent by racial and political unrest ... was a world apart from the Mission where he grew up.
"This is what the Mount was about," George Rivera was saying, running a forefinger across an aged photograph, from one teen-aged face to another. "Irish ... Puerto Rican ... black ... Puerto Rican.
"These were your brothers," Rivera said.
When he left Mount Loretto, Rivera was part of the first group of blacks and Hispanics to integrate Marist College. "To me," he said, "it was no big deal, because that was the way I grew up at the Mount. We lived side by side."
He looked up, looked at the black, white and brown faces gathered around him.
"Color had nothing to do with it," Rivera said. Even so, being "a mission kid" may have had its penalties, even in death.
"You wonder if part of Angel's problem was that he didn't have family to act as his advocate," Mike McMahon said.
The Marines were gone now, gone back to their wives and children and grandchildren, back to the kind of lives Angel Mendez never got to live. Some of the Mount alumni hung back, in no hurry to leave.
"It's almost as if he's being punished for coming from the Mount," the Congressman said.
"That should not be allowed to stand."
--- Contributed by Jay Price
Ellie