STORRS, CT — The University of Connecticut is working toward creation of a Roll of Honor to remember alumni who made the ultimate sacrifice, and is seeking the public’s help in identifying those to be memorialized.
During a Nov. 10, 2008, Veteran’s Day observance, the University dedicated an Ultimate Sacrifice Memorial, which stands near the Wilbur Cross Building on the Storrs campus. The memorial, funded through support from the UConn Alumni Association, is a 10-foot by 5-foot brick wall with a cutout in which hangs a replica of the headstones at Arlington National Cemetery. It stands on a granite base.
Beneath the marble headstone, which was drawn from the same quarry that produced the headstones at the Arlington, Va., cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial, is a copper and gold-leaf “eternal flame,” created by Stephen Bradway, an artisan from New Jersey.
Now the University is working to prepare an accompanying Roll of Honor which will be on view at the Centennial Alumni Center, also on the Storrs campus. Betsy Pittman, University archivist and interim director of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, is coordinating research to identify and verify the names of those alumni who died of wounds or injuries sustained while serving in the armed forces of the United States. Any former student who earned at least 12 credits from UConn qualifies as an alumnus.
A Memorial Committee is looking for help in gathering names from all wars and conflicts in which the United States has been engaged since the founding of the University as the Storrs Agricultural School in 1881. Record keeping has provided many names up through World War II and the Korean War, but there is little documentation for the Vietnam era.
Involvement by the U.S. military dates from the mid-1950s when advisors were first deployed to the Southeast Asian country of South Vietnam, and into the period from 1964 following the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to the end of hostilities in the mid-1970s.
Anyone who may have information about UConn alumni who died during the Vietnam War, or any other war or military engagement in which the United States was involved, is encouraged to send the information to Pittman at Betsy.Pittman@uconn.edu or Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, 405 Babbidge Road - Unit 1205, Storrs, CT 06269-1205.
Donations, to support the memorial and the research effort, may be made to The Veterans Memorial Fund at the UConn Foundation, 2390 Alumni Drive, Storrs, CT 06269-3206.
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