‘They Came Home to New Canaan’: Town Observes Veterans Day in God’s Acre Ceremony

New Canaan’s Steve Benko often recalls a photo that used to hang in his grandparents’ Summer Street home. It showed John and Elizabeth Benko sitting together on their front porch, while in the window hung a banner with five gold stars, indicating that five sons were in service of the nation. 

Steve, Paul, John, Lewis and William Benko had volunteered to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces in the months that followed the Pearl Harbor attack. Lewis Benko, a great local athlete, enlisted in the U.S. Marines in September 1942. He was wounded in July 1944 at Saipan, rejoined his unit five months later, and was killed in action during the assault on Iwo Jima in February 1945—one of 38 New Canaan men to die during World War II. 

On Monday morning, Benko quoted something that his uncle Lewis said to Elizabeth as she dropped her son off at the train station prior to his leaving New Canaan for what would be the last time.

“He says to my grandmother, ‘Gosh, I would never want to live anywhere else but this place,’ ” Benko told more than 150 residents gathered at God’s Acre on a clear, cool morning for the town’s annual Veterans Day ceremony, quoting from a 1946 Gold Star book featuring stories about the servicemen who never came home.

In pouring over historical records of the 1,100 residents who served during World War II in preparation for the address, Benko said he came upon the “names of all the lifelong residents, the names of the people here” and that they form part of a “bigger family” than his own, “the veterans of New Canaan.”

“These men served this country proudly and they came home to New Canaan,” he said. “And they served New Canaan as businessmen, bankers. They were the builders and contractors who built the homes for veterans so they could raise their families here. They were lawyers, doctors, dentists, they became police officers, became firemen, became teachers, postmen and they also served our town government in many different ways. They all worked to help make New Canaan the town it is today. They were pillars of our community and the veterans today continue in that role.”

Benko concluded, “So to all veterans here today, thank you for your service to our country. But most importantly, thank you for all of your contributions to make New Canaan the great place that it is today.”

The stirring ceremony at the Wayside Cross, itself a World War I memorial, included the Pledge of Allegiance, playing of “Taps,” presentation of colors by the New Canaan Police Department Color Guard, moment of silence, reading out of names of New Canaan veterans who have died in the past year, prayer led by 1965 New Canaan High School graduate and former U.S. Marine and Vietnam War veteran Brian Vanderheyden, comments from First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Kathleen Tesluk of the Hannah Benedict Carter Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and recitation of the poem “In Flanders Fields” by event organizer Peter Langenus, commander of VFW Post 653 and a former U.S. Army captain in Vietnam who also served as a colonel during Operation Desert Storm. 

Vanderheyden said, “Let us always honor the memory of those brave men and women who sacrificed so that we may experience freedom. Let our hearts be compassionate, our minds determined in giving them that honor and respect.”

He added, “Let this day be a day of commemoration and honor to all those who sacrificed in order to ensure our liberty and to keep our nation secure.”

Tesluk said she grew up the daughter of a naval officer, and called Veterans Day “one of those moments, all too rare as we go about our busy lives, when we pause and reflect on the fact that all of the freedoms and liberties that we take for granted today were bought and paid for through the sacrifice and service of our fellow citizens.”

Tesluk recalled growing up around people who understood intuitively that service “is not just a duty, but also a privilege.”

“Service and sacrifice is really at the heart of what it means to be a veteran,” she said. “There is a stanza from ‘America the Beautiful’ that expresses what I want to say better than anything I could write. ‘Oh, beautiful for heroes proved / In liberating strife, / Who more than self their country loved, / And mercy more than life.’ Today and every day it’s important to remember that we stand on the shoulders of these men and women—citizen soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, who recognize the debt that we owe our ancestors and elected to pay it forward so that future generations might enjoy the same freedoms that we enjoy today. God bless our veterans.”

Moynihan in his remarks noted that there’s a plaque at the base of a new flagpole in Mead Park by the Gold Star Walk that reads, “In honor of the men and women of New Canaan who serve in the Armed Forces and the families who wait for their safe return.”

Benko spotlighted another community project in addressing the crowd, from town resident Jack Goetz who for his Eagle Scout project worked to produce banners profiling individual local veterans that now are on display on light poles on both sides of Elm Street (see gallery below).

Here’s a list of the names read aloud at God’s Acre this year, of New Canaan veterans who died in the past 12 months:

• Albert Liebel, Jr.
• John Pallas, Jr.
• Clifton Sprague 
• Harold McDonald, Jr.
• William Kautsky
• Leonard Green
• Harmon Thomas Gnuse
• Arthur Cooney
• Edward Hood, Jr.
• William Roth, Jr.
• John Moreno
• Frank Basso
• Myron Frank
• Paul Du Vivier
• Leo Clancy
• Jonathan Old, Jr.
• Theodore Varga
• William Wheeler
• Anna Totaro
• Clifton Fichtner
• Richard Chilton, Sr.
• Thomas O’Brien
• John Birkelund
• Charles Stevens, Jr.
• Ronald Ade
• Barbara Wood 
• Ernest Mayer, Jr.
• Jack Webb
• William Crane III
• Kenneth Soderquist 
• Dean Hadley
• Charles Simonds
• Victor Ferrante
• David Borglum
• Patrick Kelly
• Domenick Caruso
• Robert Fairty
• Robert Thomas
• Phil Antedomenico
• Edward Williams
• Nigel Maceven

The banners downtown are part of town resident Jack Goetz's Eagle Scout Project "