By Mary C. Marvin

May 13, 2015:  At this year's--our 95th--annual Memorial Day parade, we are reviving a tradition of asking our village veterans to march with us. The village has no organized veterans associations, unlike the American Legion Post and VFW in neighboring Eastchester, whose members have long joined us in our parade. We hope this year to combine forces and honor veterans from Eastchester, Tuckahoe, and now Bronxville.

For such a small village, we have a large contingent of villagers who have served our nation, all of them truly a hero next door. Our scroll of honor has the names of 1,575 people, 85 of whom paid the ultimate sacrifice, and we know we are missing so many more who have served.

Generations of Bronxville citizens have truly stepped up when called in time of national need. Families in Bronxville have sent their sons and daughters into harm's way from as long ago as the Civil War up to and including the war in Afghanistan. In fact, we have Bronxville fathers who have served in Vietnam with sons who then served in Iraq. 

Other Bronxville residents experienced the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Iwo Jima, and the taking of Normandy Beach. Your neighbors were military engineers, hospital corpsmen, Seabees, flyers, artillery experts, bombardiers, seamen, members of special forces, doctors, nurses, paratroopers, submariners, and mountain troopers. A remarkable number of Bronxville women also served our country in various professional capacities.

One villager liberated Jewish captives behind enemy blockades, another discovered that soldiers were contracting hepatitis through battlefield blood transfusions, another was an original WWII "Desert Rat," three were taken as prisoners of war, another tracked the German submarines in Long Island Sound, and another treated survivors of the Wake Island Prison Camp.

Bronxvillians served our country in all corners of the world from the Philippines to Germany, Belgium, Italy, France, North Africa, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Some survived sinking ships and famous battles; others were killed in action or taken prisoner of war. Four members of the 1962 and 1963 Bronxville High School classes died in Vietnam, one less than two months after deployment. One young man survived Vietnam only to die in the World Trade Center attack.

Our villagers served directly under such famous leaders as Generals George Patton and Douglas MacArthur, while another was the driver for President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

These young men were our neighbors, someone's son, your child's best friend in school, the boy you coached in soccer, and now the memory of someone's dad or grandpa or grandma--pages in proud family histories.

Villager veterans ranged from the very well-known "Ace of Aces" and Medal of Honor winner Eddie Rickenbacker, who won virtually every military decoration, having shot down 25 enemy planes and logged 300 combat flying hours, the most in World War I history, to scores of less famous quiet heroes.

Galvanized by his Bronxville neighbor Rickenbacker, one villager joined the RAF in 1939 because it was then his only opportunity to take a side against Hitler.

Another villager saved the piece of enemy flak that literally landed on his lap as he flew a combat mission over German fuel depots.

On only his tenth sortie, a resident was shot down over Hungary and went from college freshman to Prisoner of War No. 7910. He ended up at Stalag Luft III, the camp that was the subject of the movie The Great Escape. Coming home 45 pounds thinner, he again chose to serve for almost two more years in Korea when his skill set was needed.

If you visit Arlington National Cemetery, you will see the grave of young Ed Keebler, a Bronxville School and Princeton graduate who joined the Marines and became a gunship pilot in Vietnam. On an early mission, Ed kept enemy fire trained on him so an air ambulance could medivac the injured off the jungle floor knowing he was going to be shot down.

And even closer to home, there is a full-sized stained-glass window at Christ Church dedicated to World War II hero and Bronxville resident Charlie Flammer. A Princeton grad and B-25 bomber pilot, he lost an engine but then maneuvered his plane so that his entire crew could get out while he went down with the plane.

And just recently, residents have won Purple Hearts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bronxville is home to an extraordinarily rich history of citizen residents who answered the call to serve.

It would be a privilege if all of our veterans would let the rest of the village salute them at the 9:00 am parade on Monday, May 25.

We sent personal letters of invitation to what we know is an incomplete/outdated list of those who served, so please, if we missed you, accept my invitation here by calling village hall at 914-337-6500 and saying "yes" to Memorial Day recognition.

It would be the village's honor to have you as a part of the parade.