Garden City Park Pays Homage to Fallen on Memorial Day

The Garden City Park area held its annual Memorial Day parade on Monday morning, netting a bit fairer weather than the one two days prior to its west, but still no less full of reverence for the servicemen that it sought to honor.

“What greater act can we perform than to ‘cherish tenderly the memory of our deceased military heroes,’ said Richard DiMartino, senior vice-commander of VFW Post 120 on the steps of the Garden City Park School. “This ceremony is an expression of our tribute to their devotion to duty, to their courage and patriotism.”

The parade began south on Denton Avenue before turning east onto Jericho Turnpike where it hit Nassau Boulevard and turned north. Marchers then headed west on Fourth Street to the Garden City Park School where a ceremony was held before continuing south on Central Avenue back to Jericho Turnpike to the VFW Hall.

“We gather today on this most solemn occasion in reverence to those who have given the supreme sacrifice of their lives in defense of their country,” post chaplain Phil Eradita said in his invocation.

Numerous officials from North Hempstead were in attendance, including Supervisor Jon Kaiman, councilman Angelo Ferrara, town clerk Leslie Gross, New Hyde Park Chamber President Mark Laytin, Nassau County Legislators Richard Nicolello, Wayne Wink, Nassau Clerk Maureen O’Connell and state assemblywoman Michelle Schimel.

“Every year I run to make this event because I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” councilman Angelo Ferrara said, coming to the ceremony from one being held in Williston Park. “It’s celebrating the lives of those who gave them up for us, that gave us the freedoms that we enjoy every day and for the families that also had to endure the sacrifices.”

Added Laytin: “Today is not about the sales in the malls, for you kids out there it’s not about the barbecues although we enjoy being with our families on this day, it’s about remembering those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we the people can always review.”

A rifle volley for the war dead were fired by a lone rifleman after grand marshall Charles Fitzgerald and president of ladies auxiliary Connie Staffa placed a wreath at the memorial near the school entrance.

“We remember because it’s important not just to those of us who knew and know those fighting for it; it’s important to the families, it’s important to the neighbors, it’s important to the country; it’s about who we are as a people, remembering those who gave the ultimate sacrifice,” Kaiman said.

“Let us think about all the families who gave a child, a son, a daughter, a mother, a father, a husband, a wife, whose lives were affected forever by those losses and what they gave so that we could be here today,” O’Connell said.

A reading of all of the deceased members of the VFW from Garden City Park were also read aloud by DiMartino: Henry Dziomba, George Graboski, Charles Janosick, Lewis Lepere, Joseph Seller, Robert Finnegan, Edward Gromatski, Michael Leonard, Howard Mackinnon and Henry Yarsinske.

“We would not be the land of the free without the home of the brave,” Nicolello said of Francis Scott Key who coupled the words together in the national anthem. “We recognize their bravery, their courage and ultimately their final sacrifice for us so that we can be the land of the free.”

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