Niles bridges dedicated to vets
By Jordan Cohen
NILES
In a sunlit, flag-festooned ceremony highlighted by a military color guard and a veterans’ honor guard, the bridge spanning Mosquito Creek on Robbins Avenue was dedicated as the Persian Gulf Veterans Bridge.
It is one of two Niles bridges renamed Sunday in honor of veterans of the wars fought since 1991. The other, on SouthMain Street, will be known as the Iraq/Afghanistan Veterans Bridge.
“I felt this was something we should do,” said Robert Marino Sr., a member of Trumbull County Chapter 11 of the Disabled American Veterans, who served as master of ceremonies for the dedication. “We have to honor all these people who served.”
Marino said approval by the Legislature was needed for the name change because the section of Robbins Avenue where the bridge is located is state Route 46. Veterans met with then state Rep. Thomas Letson of Warren, D-64th.
“The changes were approved in a ‘Christmas-tree bill,’ which the Legislature passed last year,” said Letson, who attended Sunday’s ceremony.
Several who served in Operation Desert Storm in 1991 when U.S. forces drove Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army out of Kuwait were appreciative.
“This is awesome,” said Robert Chambers, 50, of Niles, who served during Desert Storm.
“It’s a wonderful thing,” agreed another Iraq veteran, Charles Grounds, 70, of Niles, who wanted veterans of an earlier, controversial war to be remembered as well.
“It should have been done for the Vietnam veterans who were treated like dogs when they came home,” Grounds said. “It was long overdue.”
“We’ve paid a heavy toll for our most recent wars,” said Lt. Col. William Meade, executive officer from nearby Camp Ravenna and a Niles native. Meade recalled losing nine friends during the wars.
“They were good men and good soldiers,” Meade said. “They are not forgotten 10 years after their death.”
“This is what we’re proud of, our service,” said Maj. Wendy Strainic, executive officer of the 910th Air Wing at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station. Strainic has had previous deployments in Qatar, Kuwait and Kyrgyzstan. “I’ll be returning,” she said during her address.
In the most solemn event of the ceremony, the Girard Veterans Council Honor Guard fired a 21-gun salute in memory of veterans lost in the Middle East wars including three from Trumbull County killed in action during Operation Iraqi Freedom: Lt. Col. Dominic Baragona of Niles in 2003, Sgt. Marco Miller of Warren in 2006 and Sgt. Robert Carr, a Fowler resident, in 2007. Strainic and other officers walked to the edge of the bridge and tossed three floral wreaths in their memory to the waters below.
As a trumpeter played taps, the wreaths floated away in the placid waters of Mosquito Creek.