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Respect
Bugler Tyler Eddy and two members of the American Legion Post 13 color guard pause at the end of the Beirut Barracks Bombing remembrance ceremony Oct. 23 in the Veterans Memorial Park in Putnam. Linda Lemmon photos.
Christopher Steinbrick places a white rose at the memorial wreath as one of the six Connecticut servicemen killed in Beirut in 1983 is read.
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM — Ten years ago, as Kat Voght was walking 200 miles in remembrance of those American soldiers lost in the Beirut Barracks bombing in 1983, it occurred to her that “no one was walking.”
Voght decided she needed to do something. It didn’t deserve to be forgotten.
She asked Willie Bousquet, director of the town’s Parks and Recreation Department, for advice. He thought some sort of remembrance was a great idea and connected her with the late Don Steinbrick. “I remember walking away (after talking with Steinbrick) and thinking ‘he’s cranky and a curmudgeon’ but he was wholeheartedly behind the idea. We became fast friends,” she said. The late Richard Tremblay was also a huge help. She called them “guardian angels on my shoulder.”
Initially, 10 years ago, the remembrance was a candlelight vigil at Rotary Park. She said the American Legion Post 13 and others have taken up the ceremony which is now a solemn event at the town’s Veterans Memorial Park on Bridge Street.
“It’s not just a remembrance but an education,” she said. The bombing killed 241 and wounded 150 other Americans. “It was the single largest attack on our military since Iwo Jima,” she added. She said she asked her son, Marine Robert Voght 2nd, if he knew about the bombing from school. His answer was no. It’s not taught in schools. He learned about it in Marine training.
Steinbrick’s son, Christopher, picked up the gauntlet, spearheading this year’s ceremony. Because he had the flu, Ronald P. Coderre stepped in as emcee and read Christopher’s speech. Veterans from Putnam read all 241 names and when they read of the six veterans from Connecticut who were killed, Christopher placed a white rose. Putnam is one of only two towns in Connecticut which honors those killed/wounded in the Beirut Barracks bombing.
In his address to the 75 in the park Oct. 23 Putnam Mayor Barney Seney, himself a veteran, said that Steinbrick had already had a Beirut monument created and it’s being held “waiting to be placed in the veterans park in about two years when the park is revamped.
“We can never forget. You can remember them,” he said.
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