NHP vets hold day of remembrance

Michael Scro

Members of VFW G. & E. Linder Post 8031 and American Legion Post 1089 celebrated the 90th Veterans Day Ceremony on Sunday morning outside New Hyde Park Village Hall.  

Post 8031 Commander Ed Smolenski presided at the ceremonies in which Village of New Hyde Park Mayor Daniel Petruccio was the featured speaker.  

Angela Powers, leader of the Stewart Manor-New Hyde Park Republican Club, sang the National Anthem. New Hyde Park Boy Scouts and family and residents gathered to honor veteran’s services to the U.S. and remember those who have died in the heat of battle.

“Today we recognize our 43 million Americans, past and present, who served this country and kept us free,” Smolenski said in his opening remarks.

Petruccio spoke of the current condition of America, saying: “We look across the landscape of a country that seems to have lost its way…our society has fallen into the practice of worshiping the self-centered lives of celebrities and sports figures.”  

Praising veterans as “selfless and self-sacrificing,” Petruccio said, “These are the virtues that made this country great, those men and women who sacrificed their youth so we can be free today.”

The names of veterans from within the New Hyde Park community were read aloud and a story of heroism was told by American Legion member Frank DiNatale about Frank Fangman Jr., who served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.  In the Battle of the Coral Sea. Fangman was captain of the engine room aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Lexington when the signal to abandon ship was sounded. 

Fangman was trapped in the engine room with six of his men.  

“Using a blowtorch, he cut his way though the wall, only to find 14 more decks to go through,” DiNatale said.  “One by one, he cut through each deck, rescuing himself and his men.”  

Fangman died in 2007. His son, Frank, attended the ceremony in his father’s memory.

Celia Niosi spoke about her father, Walter Marcheski, who served in World War I and was awarded two Purple Hearts. She also spoke of her husband, Jerome Niosi, who served in World War II, and her son Kenneth Niosi, who served in Desert Storm and died in the second war in Iraq.

“May they rest in peace, and all the others whom I grew up with in New Hyde Park,” Niosi said.

The village also recognized the achievements of the New Hyde Park Little League girls softball team for participating in the Little League Softball World Series this year.  

Reading aloud a plaque donated to team manager and coach Tom Donnelly from the American Legion Post 1089 and VFW Post 8031, Smolenski said, “forever the Village of New Hyde Park will remember your accomplishments.”

The ceremony concluded with three volleys of shots fired, the placing of a wreath on the War Memorial on the lawn in front of Village Hall and the playing of taps.

Edit: It was previously reported that the Village of New Hyde Park presented the plaque to the girls softball team, however the plaque was donated by the American Legion Post 1089 and VFW Post 8031.  It was also previous reported that Jerome Niosi was killed in combat in World War II.  This is incorrect.  Blank Slate Media sincerely regrets these errors.

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