Volunteers lay wreaths on Damato gravesite

SHENANDOAH HEIGHTS – While the Shenandoah area doesn’t have its own organized Wreaths Across America event to recognize the nearly 4,000 veterans laid to rest here, a group of volunteers took time Sunday to remember a pair of veterans from town.

Volunteers with the Polish American Fire Co., who put together an effort to adorn the graves of Shenandoah’s fallen heroes with flags for Memorial Day, stopped by the New St. Casimir’s Cemetery in Shenandoah Heights.

There, two children with the group, accompanied by American Legion members, laid wreaths on the Damato gravesite — Anthony P. and Neil.

Anthony P. Damato, a Medal of Honor recipient, is the namesake of the American Legion post in town.

While their headstone is in Shenandoah Heights, neither brother is there. Anthony is buried in Hawaii and Neil was declared missing in action over Germany and never found.

Allen Palubinsky, one of the organizers with the Polish American, said the wreath-laying Saturday morning was inspired by the national Wreaths Across America effort, though he said a full effort in Shenandoah Heights, where he said nearly 4,000 veterans are, would be prohibitive.

Neil was a captain in the 8th Air Force and was lost in 1943.

Anthony was a corporal in Company E, 2nd Battalion, 22nd Marines, 5th Amphibious Corps., and perished on Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor after he flung himself on a grenade, sacrificing his life for the lives of two others in a foxhole with him.