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City Tech Student Veterans Remember the Fallen During Memorial Day Weekend Trip to D.C.
Members of City Tech’s Student Veterans Club joined thousands of other visitors in remembering family and friends who have given their lives in the service of their country during a Memorial Day Weekend trip to Washington, DC. Students Philip Chiu, Christine Dejean and Binod Gurung were accompanied on the trip by Dejean’s sons, Craig and Stephan, and Binod friend Karma Lama, club faculty advisor Paul Schwartz, LCSW, MA, Counseling, and City Tech Veterans Program Coordinator John Byrnes.
The group visited Washington and neighboring Virginia’s historic sites, including the National Museum of Natural History, the Air and Space Museum, the Custis-Lee Mansion, the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and Vietnam Memorial Wall. They also took part in various Memorial Day activities, including the changing of the guard at Arlington National Cemetery and were there as President Bush arrived to place a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Other activities included attending the Rolling Thunder Parade down Constitution Avenue. For 20 years, thousands of motorcyclists from all over America have made this annual pilgrimage to the capital to honor U.S. military members past and present.
“We visited the final resting places of friends and others lost in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Chiu, “including that of late CUNY student Francis Obaji of College of Staten Island. And while he is buried elsewhere, late City Tech student Frederick Akintade, who was killed in Iraq in October 2004, was very much in our thoughts.”
The Student Veterans Club’s Memorial Day trip to the nation’s capital is now an annual event, and club members expect participation to increase as more student veterans take part in club activities and more avail themselves of the comprehensive services offered former soldiers and reservists attending City Tech. For additional information on these services, visit http://www.citytech.cuny.edu./veterans/index.html.
06/26/07
