Eisenhower Park hosts Vietnam Memorial replica

As Walter Carney, 20, stood guard duty at a Mekong Delta U.S. Army post in Vietnam in 1969, an exploding grenade took the life of the Bronx boy with the dimpled chin.

At home, his wife, Joan, was three months pregnant.

The death devastated Carney's family, plunging his father into a long depression, and leaving his many siblings with feelings of despair, anger and -- for a brother who served in the Navy -- survivor's guilt.

Carney's daughter, Florence Torres, who was born six months after her father's death, grew up yearning to know details of her father's life. But the pain of his death left members of his family so hurt that none would talk much about him.

That is until the family, prodded by Joan Carney, agreed in 1994 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Carney's death by meeting at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.

There, seeing their brother's name etched among the more than 58,000 Americans who perished during what had been America's longest war, helped family members finally open up. Almost immediately, Torres said, Carney's siblings began talking openly about the square-jawed soldier she never knew.

"Before that they would say 'that's Walter's girl,' and get quiet without really talking to me about what he was like," she said. "But visiting the wall, that was the first time my aunts and uncles really opened up, and I got those true stories about what he did and who he was."

Thursday, Torres, who lives in Mount Vernon, traveled to Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, where a traveling scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is on display through Saturday.

With her mother standing with her, Torres found her father's name on Panel 22, line 38. She brought her fingertips to her pursed lips, then rubbed a kiss where his name is etched in the memorial's dark, glossy surface.

"That was the first time that I got those true stories, about what he did, and who he was, who his friends were, even the cigarettes that he smoked and the brand of beer he drank," Torres said, recalling her family's visit to the wall in 1994. "It was great."

Joan Carney stood by the panel where her husband's name was, her image softly reflected in the memorial's smooth surface. She said she visits the Vietnam Memorial more often than she visits St. Raymond's Cemetery, where Carney is buried near the Whitestone Bridge. "I'm just so much more connected here," she said wistfully. "Because he's surrounded by his friends and the others who died in the war."

The emotional impact that the memorial had on Torres' family is an indication of the evocative power that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has on those who visit it, said Paul Masi, president of the Nassau County chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America.

Once criticized by veterans for its spare design and lack of ornamentation, the 494-foot granite monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is now revered as a source of solace and spiritual connection.

"There is a family behind every one of those," Masi, a former Marine Corps sergeant from Bethpage, said of the 58,261 names that the National Parks Services says are inscribed on the wall's 70 panels.

Paul Carney, 57, said his family's 1994 decision to visit the memorial in Washington as a group helped several of his siblings to finally begin to come to terms with their grief, and to openly share stories about the brother they lost.

"It opened up a lot of pain and sorrow," said Paul Carney, of Yonkers. "But also a lot of memories. It gave us an opportunity to open up and share."