Picture This
Veterans Day Observance Remembers Those Lost in Defense of Freedom
An estimated 100 members of the City Tech community gathered in the Atrium Amphitheater on November 13 to commemorate Veterans Day and those who served in the armed forces or gave their lives in the defense of freedom during World War II and the Korean, Vietnam and Iraqi conflicts. In the audience were men and women who had served in all four engagements, including current students who recently returned to civilian life from active duty in Iraq.
The audience heard moving accounts of their personal wartime experiences from a panel of veterans who had served in Europe and the Pacific during World War II in the 1940s and in the Korean and Vietnam War eras during the 1950s and 1960s, respectively. Professor Ed Kaplan, chair of the Department of Social Science, who co-moderated the panel with Dean of Arts & Sciences Pamela Brown, began the program by describing the build-up to Pearl Harbor and the Second World War.
Clark J. Simmons, a Pearl Harbor survivor and later an FBI agent and Brooklyn prosecutor, then talked about how he was present on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, when a sneak air attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, took the lives of more than 2,400 service personnel and decimated America’s Pacific Fleet. He also spoke about how he watched from the windows of his Brooklyn home a second and equally infamous sneak attack on America on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, as two commercial airliners piloted by terrorists and filled with innocent passengers and crew destroyed the World Trade Center.
Vince Greco, a survivor of the Battle of the Bulge, next spoke about what was the bloodiest battle of World War II and the final battle launched by the Nazis. Following the war, Greco went on to become a construction site manager for Morse Diesel and at 81 continues to own and operate the Saltair Marina in Freeport, New York. Bob Pachas, a Korean War era veteran, spoke of his work arming anti-aircraft artillery in Staten Island during that conflict to protect against a possible sneak attack on the U.S. by Soviet aircraft. He went on to become a New York City junior high school teacher and is now retired.
The final speaker, Lincoln Parsons, served with U.S. Army Intelligence during the Vietnam War and was stationed in Japan. Part of his responsibilities included breaking codes following an incident involving North Korea’s January 1968 seizure at gunpoint in international waters of the USS Pueblo, a spy vessel outfitted with then-state-of-the-art communications equipment that eventually fell into Soviet hands. He is now retired after 20 years as an officer with the NYPD. Parsons and his fellow speakers responded to questions from the audience following their presentations and expressed their appreciation to City Tech for recognizing their contributions to the three war efforts and the contributions of all with whom they served and those who continue to serve in the defense of freedom.
11/28/06
