An ‘everlasting bond’: Vietnam veterans thank Cornell’s future service members

After sunset on Sept. 18, a giant bonfire illuminated the sky over Myers Park in Lansing, New York, ignited by several hundred assembled military veterans and community members, including Cornell's ROTC Tri-Service Brigade.

Hosted by the local chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), the annual "watchfire" event honored prisoners of war and service members missing in action. The ROTC cadets and midshipmen joined others placing planks on the fire to remember those fallen or unaccounted for - but not forgotten - and got to know veterans young and old.

"There's a very solemn feeling, but also a sense of pride in picking up the torch and continuing the fight," said Marco Martini '27, an ILR School senior and Air Force ROTC cadet from Wallkill, New York.

In appreciation of students' support of the POW/MIA Watchfire for more than 30 years - and for their future service - VVA Finger Lakes Chapter 377 opened Veterans Week by presenting the Tri-Service Brigade with a bronze plaque, unveiled Nov. 9 at the Cornell Veterans Celebration in Alice Statler Auditorium. The veterans made the gift as they approach a difficult transition: In two years, Chapter 377, like most nationally, will dissolve due to an aging membership.

"It's because of our ages, and we can't get the manpower to do a lot of these events anymore," said Gary Napieracz, 78, the chapter president and a former custodian in the College of Veterinary Medicine. "The university has been supportive and the ROTC has been just unbelievable, supporting us for 35 years, and we wanted to give back something special to them."

More than gratitude

At the celebration event, guest speaker U.S. Army Col. (Ret.) Isaiah "Ike" Wilson III, M.P.A. '97, M.A. '99, Ph.D. '04, a visiting lecturer in the Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy, reflected on the origin of Armistice Day, the precursor to Veterans Day, noting that a war's end does not ensure a lasting peace.

"Military service deserves more than applause; it deserves clarity about purpose," Wilson said. "The fallen deserve more than gratitude. They deserve our determination to demand sacrifice responsibly, to employ force with judgment and to make peace a deliberate undertaking rather than an afterthought."

Organized by Cornell's Veterans Colleague Network Group (VCNG), the celebration also presented a slideshow highlighting some of the university's hundreds of student, faculty and staff veterans and active-duty service members. The VCNG presented its Continuation of Service Award to Matthew Morris, an MBA student in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, who helped organize the "Baby Brigade" family resources fair in March; and to Randi Rainbow, former VCNG chair and retired director of technology at the Brooks School and the College of Human Ecology.

After the Cornell University Chorale sang the Armed Forces Salute, Navy ROTC midshipmen Sebastian Major '29 and Soomin Jung '29, students in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Cornell Duffield College of Engineering, respectively, performed a solemn "Echo Taps" as some in the audience saluted. At a reception afterward, VVA members presented the plaque to Martini, who helped coordinate the project, and the Tri-Service Brigade.

"Brigade members are the future leaders honoring veterans of the past," reads the plaque, which will hang in Barton Hall. "Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another."

"These cadets and midshipmen are going to be in the military soon and eventually they're going to be veterans," said Napieracz. "We just want them to know we have their backs."

'No one wanted to talk about it'

The atmosphere of celebration, appreciation and respect was markedly different in 1975, when Michael Moran returned from Vietnam and joined the Cornell University Police Department and U.S. Army Reserves.

"None of us were welcomed home when we got back," said Moran, of Slaterville Springs, New York, who continues to work at Cornell athletic events. "In a workplace, you didn't broadcast the fact that you'd served. Only when troops went back in the Desert Storm wars did people realize, quit blaming the individuals, blame the government."

"No one wanted to talk about it, because when we came home, it was negative to even talk about the war," said Napieracz, an Army veteran from Locke, New York, who returned in 1971. "Organizations abandoned us, didn't want any part of us. So VVA made it our model to always support the military, to let the military men and women know, when they come home, they have a welcome."

From living memory to history

More than a half-century later, Napieracz says he's among the younger of Dryden-based Chapter 377's roughly 90 members from Tompkins, Cortland, Cayuga, Seneca and Tioga counties. The VVA, which counted roughly 100,000 members nationally, said last year that chapter numbers had fallen by more than 100 since 2022, to 588 - a trend that was expected to accelerate. "The ability of Vietnam Veterans of America, Inc., to sustain national governance is declining rapidly as its members age," the organization said in a proposed resolution that called dissolution inevitable. Chapter 377 is no exception.

It's a poignant point in time that veterans of every conflict eventually reach, said military historian David Silbey '90, associate teaching professor in the Brooks School. As with other major cultural events, he said, losing that experience makes it vulnerable to "forgettings and distortions."

"There's a moment when a historical event goes from a living memory to becoming history," Silbey said. "Sept. 11 is still a living memory for a good majority of the American public, but we're losing it. Vietnam as something that people experienced is starting to transition into something people read about in textbooks."

An everlasting bond

Earlier this year, Chapter 377, which is handing off leadership of the watchfire event to Team Red, White & Blue, wanted to thank Cornell ROTC for its support each year, which includes a weekend cleanup effort. The chapter has donated granite benches across the region, but a plaque was the best fit for Barton Hall. It will hang in the main stairwell leading to the track and ROTC offices on the Statler Drive side of the former armory and drill hall.

"What we're trying to do," Napieracz said, "is leave something out there so people remember who we are."

In addition to monuments and memorials, VVA members have achieved that through bonds forged with ROTC students and leaders over several decades, most prominently through the watchfire and a patriotism award given each year. The older veterans enjoy following the brigade members' careers and imparting advice.

"At the watchfire, here are several hundred cadets and midshipmen, veterans and families, all standing around talking to each other, and it's a nice feeling," Moran said. "We're trying to help the students become good officers, to lead people who they're going to rely on to get stuff done. So we think it's part of the education."

Martini, who is on track to commission as an intelligence officer, said he and fellow students appreciate the veterans' stories and admire their bravery coping with experiences that are hard for today's students to imagine. That's what makes the plaque so meaningful, Martini said at its unveiling.

"It represents the everlasting bond between past service members - those who have already answered our nation's call - and those of us who are preparing to do the same," Martini said. "Thank you for your service, your sacrifice and the example you set for all of us who hope to do the same in the future."