Cortlandt Honors Fallen Vietnam Hero with Bench Dedication

 

By Martin Wilbur

Nearly a half-century after a local hero made the ultimate sacrifice, he has finally been honored in his home community.

Cortlandt officials, veterans and friends, family and classmates of U.S. Army Pvt. Henry Bethea gathered Saturday on a cold, windswept afternoon at Steamboat Riverfront Park in Verplanck to dedicate a bench in the soldier’s memory. Bethea, a 1967 Hendrick Hudson High School graduate and star athlete, was a paratrooper with the 82^nd Airborne Division when he was killed in Vietnam on March 4, 1969, 18 days shy of his 21^st birthday.

Bruce Fulgum, a high school classmate who called Bethea his best friend, had tried repeatedly over the years to raise money for a headstone for the soldier’s grave at nearby Sunset Cemetery. Fulgum has also been a frequent visitor to the park and more recently spotted two other benches dedicated to soldiers. He thought that would be a fitting honor for Bethea.

By reaching out to friends and former classmates through social media last February, Fulgum was able to raise more than $5,000 for the cemetery headstone and the bench, which has a small plaque affixed to it with the words, “In Memory of Henry Bethea Killed in Vietnam” and his dates of birth and death. There will also be a small scholarship established in Bethea’s name at Hendrick Hudson, Fulgum said.

“We had so much fun here, I said let’s do something else, and I thought that this was the most appropriate thing,” Fulgum said. “People come here and sit here and have lunch at the new picnic tables and look at the stone for the veterans. They just might gander over and see this plaque in honor of this 20-year-old kid. Maybe it’ll just pass in their mind: What did he do? Why did he die so young?”

The ceremony featured a color guard, Veterans of Foreign War members from Verplanck and Peekskill and Chapter 21 of the Military Order of the Purple Heart.

There were also those who remembered Bethea, a Purple Heart recipient, recalling the school’s most popular student who took his responsibilities seriously.

Retired Hendrick Hudson High School teacher and principal Gene Booth served as Bethea’s guidance counselor, helping him pursue college scholarships. Bethea accepted an offer to Garden State College in Kansas.

That’s why Bethea’s decision to leave college and enlist in the Army in 1968 during the height of the Vietnam War was such a surprise to him and others in the community, Booth said.

He said that Bethea and his brother, Rayfield, who attended Saturday’s ceremony, were the epitome of discipline, respect and manners. Booth recalled the time when Bethea returned to visit the school in his uniform.

“He was greeted by everyone as a hero returning to the scene of victory,” Booth said. “He relished it with his smiles and his quiet demeanor. The rest is history and that’s why we’re here today.”

Bethea came to Montrose and the Hendrick Hudson School District for eighth grade, said Cortlandt Supervisor Linda Puglisi. He and his brother were foster children, having been shuttled from home to home before adopted by Cleopatra and John Jones, and lived on Dutch Street.

A football, wrestling and track star, he graduated from Hendrick Hudson in 1967. The previous fall he was the star running back for the 8-0 Sailors, the only unbeaten, untied football team in school history, said friend and classmate Jim Bell.

When graduates of the school who went into the military were sent off to Vietnam, the entire community would pray for their safe return, Bell said. By the end of the war, there were five alums killed.

“Now it’s 47 years later and remembering Henry still brings a smile to our faces, but also a tear to our eyes,” Bell said.

On Bethea’s fourth day in Vietnam, he volunteered for a dangerous mission, going undercover in heavily infiltrated Viet Cong territory, Puglisi said. One day into the mission he stepped on a land mine and was killed.

“He was a very young man with his whole life ahead of him, but he sacrificed his life for all of us,” Puglisi said.

Bethea was eventually inducted into Hendrick Hudson’s Hall of Fame and had his #13 jersey retired, Fulgum said. There is also an Army photo of him at the school.

“He was the life of the party, the most popular kid in school, the best athlete,” Fulgum said. “I see his classmates and teammates here. They all loved him as much as I did.”