Appropriately held on Sept. 11, the Village of Stewart Manor rededicated a memorial to two local heroes that died exactly 50 years apart to the day: Marine Lieutenant Thomas McVeigh, killed in action in Korea at "Bloody Ridge" Sept. 11, 1951, and David Leistman, killed in the North Tower of the World Trade Center Sept. 11, 2001.

Father Patrick Rieger, an associate pastor from St. Anne's Church in Garden City, offered the invocation while Richard Mooney of Floral Park, president of the 1st Marine Division Association, offered remarks as well.

Picking up the wounded under fire when mortar fire hit a tank patrol, he earned the Bronze Star Medal for "heroic achievement...great skill and courage...he succeeded in silencing the enemy mortars..."

The son of Thomas and Edna McVeigh, who were among Stewart Manor's first settlers, McVeigh also earned himself a Silver Star Medal and four Purple Hearts. A football star and honor student during his days at Sewanhaka High School, he graduated from Columbia University and was called into active service four days after he entered St. John's University to study law.

Leistman, a bond trader at Cantor Fitzgerald, grew up in Stewart Manor, also attended Sewanhaka High School and became an All-American lacrosse player while attending school at nearby Adelphi University.

For many years, a plaque honoring Lt. McVeigh stood adjacent to Stewart Manor Village Hall, at the corner of Chester and Covert Avenues. In 2001, when the Village of Stewart Manor chose to erect a September 11, 2001 memorial on Stewart Manor Country Club grounds for Leistman and all others who perished during the terrorist attacks, McVeigh's plaque was moved as well.

Almost four months ago, Stewart Manor Mayor Joseph Troiano met with New Hyde Park resident Artie Hein, who served with McVeigh and was covering him with overhead fire the day he was killed, Mooney of the 1st Marine Division Association and Bob Rohde, the association's historian. Hein, originally outraged to find his comrade's plaque had been moved, later understood the mayor's intent. He, along with Mooney and Rohde, decided to re-bronze McVeigh's memorial, placing it on a piece of granite with his medals inscribed.