Former Valley resident inducted into Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame

By William K. Alcorn

Cyril Sedlacko was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge.

COLUMBUS — “It is a distinct honor ... the highest honor” to be included in the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame, said a former Campbell and Coitsville resident.

Cyril L. Sedlacko, 85, of Columbus, a World War II and Korean War era veteran, was inducted into the state Veterans Hall of Fame this month with 19 others during a ceremony in Columbus.

Sedlacko, of Columbus, was born at his Ohio Street home on July 3, 1924, one of nine children of Michael J. Sr. and Anna Melek Sedlacko. He lived in Campbell until age 4 when his steelworker father moved the family to a farm on Johnson Road in Coitsville Township.

After graduating in 1942 from Scienceville High School in Youngstown, he enlisted in the Army on July 19, 1943, and was assigned to the 17th Airborne Division, 513th Parachute Regiment.

“I thought the world was coming to an end when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor,” he said.

Sedlacko participated in the Battle of the Bulge in late 1944 and early 1945 and was wounded by shrapnel from an artillery round on Jan. 7, 1945, for which he received a Purple Heart.

In a telephone interview, Sedlacko said when he heard the round coming in he raised his hands and arms to protect his face and was wounded in his hands and left arm.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.