Veterans, police, firefighters, others served Thanksgiving meal by volunteers

For more than three decades, Thanksgiving came and went for Army veteran Rocky Arieno as little more than a date on a calendar. He was in prison for 27 years and after he got out, he was so estranged from his family that spending the holiday with them was not an option.

But on Thursday, Arieno, 58, sat at a Bethpage restaurant with about 100 fellow veterans eating turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and other trimmings that had been prepared by volunteers.

"This is probably the first Thanksgiving I've had that is some type of traditional since 1980," he said.

Many of the veterans came from Veterans Affairs residences in Northport -- where Arieno lives -- and St. Albans, Queens.

The annual meal began 22 years ago, after Larry Sklar, of Jewish War Veterans, said he approached the owners of a now-shuttered Syosset restaurant about focusing an existing Thanksgiving meal on veterans.

On Thursday, Sklar, 71, presided over more than two dozen volunteers as the vets -- whose service spanned from World War II to recent Middle East conflicts -- sat at B.K. Sweeney's Parkside Tavern.

Volunteer Phil Rhoads, 68, knows some of the vets from the Northport VA, where he is commander of a Disabled American Veterans chapter. Rhoads and his son Bryan, 23, also a volunteer, had plans for a Thanksgiving meal at their Syosset home later Thursday. But the elder Rhoads, a Vietnam veteran, said he knew that a lot of the diners had nowhere else to go for the holiday.

"They should at least feel they're still important," Rhoads said. "Sometimes they feel they're forgotten."

Fellow Vietnam vet Emil D'Antoni, 64, said he liked the camaraderie of eating with fellow vets outside the more institutional setting of the St. Albans VA.

"You ever eat VA food?" he asked. "This is real food."

The Bethpage meal was one of a number across Long Island aimed at those who otherwise might not have had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

At Central Presbyterian Church in Huntington and Love & Mercy Fellowship in Bay Shore, volunteers said they served more than 100 people at each location.

At four police and fire stations in Freeport and Baldwin, volunteers served more than 200 meals to police officers, firefighters and other first responders who were working Thursday, said Butch Yamali, owner of Coral House, the Baldwin restaurant that supplied the food.

Legis. Laura Curran, a Baldwin Democrat and one of those serving food in Freeport, said the meals showed appreciation for first responders.

"These people are out there keeping us safe, and they have to leave their families on Thanksgiving," she said.