Bedford Honors Those Who Served

BEDFORD, N.Y. - With Nov. 11’s Veterans Day observances approaching, Bedford took time out this past weekend to honor those who have served the nation in uniform.

Community members and veterans gathered at the Bedford Hills Community House for a  Saturday afternoon celebration of veterans’ sacrifice and service. The event, organized by the town’s Veterans Advisory Committee, opened with a formal flag ceremony by West Point’s Military Police Honor Guard and included remarks by public officials and presentation to the Bedford Hills Fire Department of a battle flag flown in operations in Iraq and Syria.

Clark Petschek, the veterans committee chairman, hosted the program from a lectern on the main hall stage. The honor guard, marching to the stage, presented the colors as Girl Scouts with the Dotted Half Notes choral group sang the National Anthem.

Bedford Supervisor Ellen Calves welcomed attendees, thanking “all the veterans and families here today for your service.”

“We appreciate you,” she said.

Calves called on government policymakers “to care for veterans and to advocate for the needs and rights of veterans long after their service ends.” It was a theme that threaded through remarks by County Legislator Erika Pierce, Assemblyman Chris Burdick and especially the county’s director of veterans services, Ron Tocci.

A paratrooper with the 82^nd Airborne Division during the Vietnam War, Tocci served 20 years in the state Assembly before heading the Veterans Service Agency.  

While America has a population of some 350 million, he noted, barely more than a million men and women are serving in uniform on active duty today. The Pentagon put that number last month at 1.28 million, the nation’s smallest fighting force since World War II. 

To encourage more enlistments, Tocci said, potential recruits should be assured they’ll have support from government at all levels. His office last year secured federal funding of $136 million for Westchester veterans.

Retired Navy Commander Christopher Hurley, chaplain of the Bedford Hills Fire Department, delivered the invocation. Later, he also presented those firefighters with a flag flown in Iraq and Syria by his son’s 10^th Mountain Division unit. Deputy Chief Joseph Lombardo accepted the flag for the department.

In a letter accompanying the flag, Army Capt. Patrick Hurley thanked the fire department volunteers “for their kind contributions to the soldiers deployed in support of Operation Inherent Resolve.”

Petschek thanked veterans Mike Palladino, George Rosamond, Steve Kucerak, Guy Carlsen, Tom Porteus, Thom Newman, Greg Repp and Hank Bergson for their help with the planning and execution of the festivities.