Tag Archives: veterans

Veterans no longer living in a box

Posted on 08. Dec, 2009 by .

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By Almudena Toral Before coming to the veterans’ residence on 119th Street in East Harlem, Reynaldo Melendez had no home. “I used to sleep in cardboard boxes,” he said. A Vietnam veteran from Puerto Rico, Melendez is one of the estimated 400,000 U.S. war veterans who face homelessness every given year according to the Department […]

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Navy, Old and New, on the USS New York

Posted on 08. Dec, 2009 by .

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by Erin McCarthy

Frank DeCicco, 80, climbed aboard the U.S.S. New York 56 years after he served in the Navy on the U.S.S. Helena during the Korean War. He sniffed the below-decks air, tinged with metal and oil.

“A navy ship’s a navy ship. To me they all smell the same,” he said.

DeCicco, of Bethpage, N.Y., was one of many Navy veterans to visit the U.S.S. New York during its 10-day stay in New York City over the Veterans Day holiday. For some veterans, it was an opportunity to remember their service and to see how the Navy has changed.

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Memories of the Military

Posted on 08. Dec, 2009 by .

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Gus Guisintanner remembers the sand sprinkled on the Savoy Ballroom’s floors, so feet could slide more easily to the rhythm of live performances by Jackie Wilson or Lou Rawls.

“That’s what I really liked, the sanding on the floor. Shuffling and carrying on,” Guisintanner, now 75, said at the Wayside Boulevard Senior Center in East New York.

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