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Philadelphia Inquirer
May 3, 2008
Pg. 1
A hero's remains to move to Arlington
By Tom Infield, Inquirer Staff Writer
For nearly 40 years, Cpl. Michael Crescenz had lain beside a quiet road in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery just over the border from Philadelphia.
Yesterday, beneath bright sunshine, and escorted by a phalanx of police officers and Vietnam veterans riding motorcycles, Crescenz began a journey that will take him to a new resting place at Arlington National Cemetery.
"We've had him to ourselves long enough," said Crescenz's brother Joe. "It's just time that Michael goes home to be with his comrades in arms from all the various wars."
Crescenz, who was 19 when he was killed in combat on Nov. 20, 1968, was the only Philadelphia resident to receive the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry during the Vietnam War.
The notion of disinterring the Cardinal Dougherty High School graduate from his grave in Cheltenham Township and moving him to Arlington, Va., across the Potomac River from Washington, had long been talked about in the Crescenz family.
"World War II veterans, Korea vets, Vietnam vets - a lot of them said to us, 'Why is that boy not down in Arlington? That boy's a hero,' " the brother said.
But as long as his parents were living in the West Oak Lane section of Philadelphia, that was out of the question.
"Mom and Dad, they wanted him close to home," said Joe Crescenz, who lives in Downingtown.
In 2006, with both parents long dead and buried at a veterans cemetery in Cape May Court House, N.J., Joe Crescenz and his four remaining brothers talked about it again.
It was painful to think of digging Michael up.
That was done Thursday. The body was taken overnight to a funeral home in Downingtown and returned to the grave site yesterday afternoon for what amounted to a second funeral.
The family gathered in black under a canopy. The body, in a new casket draped with the Stars and Stripes, was lifted by six pallbearers from a black Cadillac hearse and placed on steel supports over the grave.
An Air Force color guard stood at attention, as did a dozen white-helmeted members of the Philadelphia Highway Patrol and several dozen veteran motorcyclists wearing leather vests and arm bands that read "Patriot Guard Riders."
Among others who attended was Bill Stafford, 59, of East Hampton, N.Y., a member of Michael Crescenz's platoon in Alpha Company of the 196th Infantry Brigade, Americal Division.
Stafford, who wore a blue suit with a Purple Heart pin on the lapel, said Crescenz had saved his life.
Their unit had been on patrol in the Hiep Duc Valley area of what was then South Vietnam when they were attacked by North Vietnamese soldiers hidden in machine-gun bunkers.
The two men walking at the point of the American column were shot dead, Stafford recalled. So were a lieutenant and a sergeant.
"We walked right into an ambush," Stafford said. "Truthfully, I was so scared. The adrenaline was going. It all happened in just seconds."
Crescenz got up from the ground, grabbed an M-60 machine gun, and charged 100 meters up a slope toward the dug-in North Vietnamese positions.
His Medal of Honor citation, presented to his family at the White House by President Richard M. Nixon, said he knocked out one, then two, then three machine guns, clearing a momentary path for his platoon to move forward.
He was then cut down by a fourth enemy machine gun, which he could not get to.
Stafford said he did not know for two years afterward that Crescenz had been awarded the nation's highest military honor.
He said he had come to the ceremony yesterday because "it gives me a chance to honor Michael, which I didn't have before."
Some who attended had known only that Crescenz was an honored veteran. Many were struck by the timing of the event, amid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Frank Tacey of Northeast Philadelphia, a leader of the motorcycle group, said he had attended several funerals to honor the latest generation of soldiers killed in combat.
"It's just a matter of respect," he said of attending yesterday.
He noted that veterans generally are treated with more respect then during the Vietnam War.
"I'm sure, when Michael was buried in 1968, there weren't as many people at the cemetery," he said. "The sentiment in 1968 wasn't very good."
After the brief service, the casket was lifted and returned to the hearse.
The riders got aboard their bikes and led the hearse onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike for a 40-mile drive to Downingtown, where it will remain at a funeral home until May 12.
On that date, the riders will remount for the final leg of the journey to Arlington, 130 miles to the southwest.
There, with all the pomp and ceremony that the U.S. military can muster, Mike Crescenz will be buried again.
"It's been a long time coming," his brother Joe said.
May 3, 2008
Pg. 1
A hero's remains to move to Arlington
By Tom Infield, Inquirer Staff Writer
For nearly 40 years, Cpl. Michael Crescenz had lain beside a quiet road in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery just over the border from Philadelphia.
Yesterday, beneath bright sunshine, and escorted by a phalanx of police officers and Vietnam veterans riding motorcycles, Crescenz began a journey that will take him to a new resting place at Arlington National Cemetery.
"We've had him to ourselves long enough," said Crescenz's brother Joe. "It's just time that Michael goes home to be with his comrades in arms from all the various wars."
Crescenz, who was 19 when he was killed in combat on Nov. 20, 1968, was the only Philadelphia resident to receive the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry during the Vietnam War.
The notion of disinterring the Cardinal Dougherty High School graduate from his grave in Cheltenham Township and moving him to Arlington, Va., across the Potomac River from Washington, had long been talked about in the Crescenz family.
"World War II veterans, Korea vets, Vietnam vets - a lot of them said to us, 'Why is that boy not down in Arlington? That boy's a hero,' " the brother said.
But as long as his parents were living in the West Oak Lane section of Philadelphia, that was out of the question.
"Mom and Dad, they wanted him close to home," said Joe Crescenz, who lives in Downingtown.
In 2006, with both parents long dead and buried at a veterans cemetery in Cape May Court House, N.J., Joe Crescenz and his four remaining brothers talked about it again.
It was painful to think of digging Michael up.
That was done Thursday. The body was taken overnight to a funeral home in Downingtown and returned to the grave site yesterday afternoon for what amounted to a second funeral.
The family gathered in black under a canopy. The body, in a new casket draped with the Stars and Stripes, was lifted by six pallbearers from a black Cadillac hearse and placed on steel supports over the grave.
An Air Force color guard stood at attention, as did a dozen white-helmeted members of the Philadelphia Highway Patrol and several dozen veteran motorcyclists wearing leather vests and arm bands that read "Patriot Guard Riders."
Among others who attended was Bill Stafford, 59, of East Hampton, N.Y., a member of Michael Crescenz's platoon in Alpha Company of the 196th Infantry Brigade, Americal Division.
Stafford, who wore a blue suit with a Purple Heart pin on the lapel, said Crescenz had saved his life.
Their unit had been on patrol in the Hiep Duc Valley area of what was then South Vietnam when they were attacked by North Vietnamese soldiers hidden in machine-gun bunkers.
The two men walking at the point of the American column were shot dead, Stafford recalled. So were a lieutenant and a sergeant.
"We walked right into an ambush," Stafford said. "Truthfully, I was so scared. The adrenaline was going. It all happened in just seconds."
Crescenz got up from the ground, grabbed an M-60 machine gun, and charged 100 meters up a slope toward the dug-in North Vietnamese positions.
His Medal of Honor citation, presented to his family at the White House by President Richard M. Nixon, said he knocked out one, then two, then three machine guns, clearing a momentary path for his platoon to move forward.
He was then cut down by a fourth enemy machine gun, which he could not get to.
Stafford said he did not know for two years afterward that Crescenz had been awarded the nation's highest military honor.
He said he had come to the ceremony yesterday because "it gives me a chance to honor Michael, which I didn't have before."
Some who attended had known only that Crescenz was an honored veteran. Many were struck by the timing of the event, amid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Frank Tacey of Northeast Philadelphia, a leader of the motorcycle group, said he had attended several funerals to honor the latest generation of soldiers killed in combat.
"It's just a matter of respect," he said of attending yesterday.
He noted that veterans generally are treated with more respect then during the Vietnam War.
"I'm sure, when Michael was buried in 1968, there weren't as many people at the cemetery," he said. "The sentiment in 1968 wasn't very good."
After the brief service, the casket was lifted and returned to the hearse.
The riders got aboard their bikes and led the hearse onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike for a 40-mile drive to Downingtown, where it will remain at a funeral home until May 12.
On that date, the riders will remount for the final leg of the journey to Arlington, 130 miles to the southwest.
There, with all the pomp and ceremony that the U.S. military can muster, Mike Crescenz will be buried again.
"It's been a long time coming," his brother Joe said.