Veteran Joe Kianka reads off the names of those veterans whose names are on the memorial bricks surrounding the Hopewell Valley Veterans Memorial as Robert H. Kraeger, VP of Hopewell Valley Veterans Assoc. (sitting) looks on during the Hopewell Valley Memorial Day ceremony, Titusville. Beverly Schaefer/For The Times

Hopewell Township unveils veterans memorial

Sunday, May 24, 2009
BY CHRIS STURGIS
Special to the Times

HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP -- The sacrifices by the nation's veterans was honored yesterday with a ceremony capped off by a fly-over by two T-28 Navy training aircraft, one of which was flown by Hopewell Valley resident Andrew Swart.
Brig. Gen. John M. Nunn, assistant adjutant of the New Jersey National Guard, said a vigilant military is what makes it possible for Americans to fly their flag, see children playing safely, worship as they choose and have a peaceful ex change of power at the polls.

Yet, the loss of 4,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan is hard to bear, especially for their families.
"We hope that the anguish of their relatives is tempered by the knowledge that that they died for a noble cause," Nunn said.

Mercer County Executive Brian M. Hughes said Memorial Day makes him recall how his mother was a young military wife who received the dreaded news that her husband was lost at sea while she was living on a military base in Taos, N.M.
Hughes was referring to his mother's first husband, Bill Mur phy, to whom she was married be fore Hughes' father, former Gov. Richard Joseph Hughes.

The officers volunteered to assist Hughes' mother in any way they could, the county executive said.
"That is what the military is about, standing by the people in the good times and the bad," he said.
Hopewell Township Mayor Vanessa Sandom said that while many in the Hopewell Valley Veteran's Association worked to make the memorial a reality, she remembered one very persistent individual who brought the matter before council back in 2003, Severino "Sevy" Di Cocco.

She recalled the groundbreaking ceremony on May 26, 2006. "We had a big boulder and a lot of mud," she said, expressing gratitude that the site is now sculpted and landscaped. It was marked for visitors yesterday by a flag suspended high in the sky from a huge crane. White doves were released as a symbol of peace.

Taps were ceremoniously removed unveiling 52 commemorative bricks bearing the names of fallen soldiers.  Sandom said the sale of the bricks is an ongoing fund-raiser for development of the memorial. For more information, visit www.hopewellvalleyveterans.org.

In a brief interview following the ceremony, Di Cocco said he brought the issue before council repeatedly for two reasons. He didn’t want the veterans to be forgotten and he didn’t want the $5,000 allocated toward the development of the monument to be spent on something else.

The circular memorial is bounded by a stonewall with flagpoles.  The centerpiece is a bronze eagle mounted on a granite pier. The audience took advantage of the natural setting and observed the ceremony under the shade of evergreens.

The ceremony was rich in music with the singing of the National Anthem by Michael Niederer, Kyle Niederer and Tex McAlinden played “taps,” Wenonah Brooks-Hines sang “God Bless America,” and the St. Ann’s Pipe & Drum Band played “Amazing Grace.”