Presenting a committee golf shirt
to Bleier during the closing ceremonial dinner were Lynbrook Village Trustee Alan Beach, left, liaison to the committee, and former Lynbrook Village Trustee and veteran Steve Grogan. Other veteran committee members are rear, from left to right, Len Goldstein, Joe LaMura, Jerry Lange, Rick Gales, Robert Slattery, Bill Albergo, Frank Colon, Chairman Nick Camarano, and Patrick McDermott. John O’Dougherty is not pictured.
A replica of the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC, came to Greis Park in Lynbrook last June for four days. Like the full-sized wall in Washington, it listed the names of over 58,000 soldiers who died during the Vietnam Wall.
At the closing ceremonies in Lynbrook, NFL star halfback Rocky Bleier of the Pittsburgh Steelers spoke about his youth, football, and his own tour of duty in Vietnam. He told how after his rookie year in 1968 with the Steelers, after graduating from the University of Notre Dame, he was drafted into the US Army and sent to Vietnam. On August 20, 1968, he was wounded in his left hip and right leg in an ambush by the Viet Cong. He was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Although doctors told him he would never play football again he returned one year later to the Steelers training camp to rebuild his shattered body. In 1974 he returned to the starting lineup. Bleier played on the first four Steeler Super Bowl victories. He retired after the 1980 season as the Steelers fourth all-time leading rusher. After retirement from football he helped the efforts to build the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C.
