On May 24, a crowd of hundreds welcomed home two Hopewell Valley Central High School graduates who gave their lives in Vietnam with a monument spearheaded by a group of seniors.
The memorial near the school’s front entrance honors Richard Stephan, Class of 1949, U.S. Navy, and Bruce Backes, Class of 1966, U.S. Army. Their families gathered from around the country for the dedication.
The monument came about after David Bello, who teaches about the Vietnam Conflict in his U.S. History 2 class, discussed the prospect of the memorial with his students last year. Inspired by the individual research they did in class on servicemen killed in action from all over the country, a group of them decided to pursue the project.
The students put on a special program preceding the dedication in the Performing Arts Center. They told the stories of the men with words, pictures and a song written and performed by student Sarah Twomey called “Extraordinary Men.”
“This is awesome. I learned things about my father that my aunts and uncles didn’t tell me,” said TeriAnn Butzin, who last saw her dad Richard Stephan when she was four years old, shortly before he died in Vietnam in 1960. Butzin now lives in Lehigh Acres, Fla.
Stephan was a career Navy man with a wife and two children who had been stationed all over the world when he was deployed on a ship in the Pacific in 1958.
The details of Stephan’s death, at a time when the U.S. was not yet formally at war with Vietnam, were somewhat uncertain. Stephan and 11 other members of his squad walked into the Vietnam jungle in August 1960 and he was reported deceased of malaria on Aug. 31.
Bruce Backes, a Hopewell Valley graduate who loved spending time in Washington Crossing State Park, was drafted in into the Air Force in 1966. He transferred into the Army in 1967 and deployed to the coast of Vietnam.
On May 5, 1968, his company was sent to help another company under enemy fire. While running to carry information to his platoon commander he was wounded and killed. Backes received both a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his bravery after his death, in addition to the other commendations he had already received.
Backes’ sister, Judy Backes Bradley -who lives in Pennington- attended the ceremony and was impressed by the memorial.
“I’m amazed at the whole thing, that the kids would take time out of their lives to do this, I really appreciate it,” she said, “It’s (an accomplishment) that they can hold onto.”
The memorial includes cases of artifacts such as an Backes’ army duffel bag and Stephan’s Navy Bible and dog tags. Additionally, two iPads that explain the men’s stories in pictures and words are installed at the memorial. The monument, which is a wall of running water, was financed by $17,000 donations by local businesses and individuals.
The CHS students who complete project are Naba Zamir, Veronica Parado, Alexis Burroughs, Emma Compton, Sarah Twomey, Matthew Begley, Gianni Momo, Andrew Gordon, Matthew Richtmyer and Scotty Hilliard.
More information is online at hvrsd.org.
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