Sep 01 2022
Mark Arehart | Delaware Public Media
Dozens were in New Castle Thursday for the re-dedication of the Gold Star Families Memorial at Veterans Memorial Park.
Gold Star families, politicians, service members and their families gathered to officially commemorate the second phase of the project honoring fallen veterans.
Sen. Chris Coons was one of the speakers.
He recalled something his father, a Korean War veteran, said to him as a boy about honoring those who paid the ultimate price.
“Honor them and their families and their sacrifice, because they didn’t get to have a life of decades. They didn’t get to have children and grandchildren. They didn’t get to enjoy the blessings of freedom which their sacrifice secured,” Coons said.
New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer said the memorial not only honors fallen soldiers, but the loved ones they left behind.
“Those that bear the brunt of that pain, that national pain, are family members. Today we celebrate them, and this monument will celebrate them today, tomorrow and every day going forward.”
Phase one of the black granite monument was unveiled on Veterans Day in 2018.
The second phase of the project added a new brickwork path, landscaping and a granite podium to the memorial.