By Michael P. Walsh
Special to the Voice
West Haven Veterans Council members and city officials will dedicate dozens of new bricks on the Veterans Walk of Honor in Bradley Point Park at 10:30 a.m. Saturday.
The public event will include the dedication of eight new names on the park’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
All veterans are invited to participate in the seaside ceremony, which will also include a flag-raising, an invocation and a wreath-laying, as well as remarks by Mayor Dorinda Borer and Veterans Council President Dave Ricci.
Rick Spreyer, Borer’s chief of staff, will serve as the event’s master of ceremonies. The rain date is 6 p.m. May 27.
In November 2006, the Veterans Council began the first of 18 campaigns selling bricks to memorialize vets on the 100-yard Walk of Honor between the William A. Soderman and Vietnam memorials.
The bricks, which cost $75, have charcoal lettering for personalized messages.
About 3,150 bricks have been installed to date, including 50 for Phase 18 and 72 for Phase 17, which was dedicated May 24, 2025.
Phase 1 of the Walk of Honor was dedicated in May 2007, along with a memorial to Korean War veterans.
In May 2008, Phase 2 of the walkway and the Soderman memorial were dedicated.
World War II Army Pfc. Soderman received the Medal of Honor after he distinguished himself in December 1944 while defending an important road junction near Rocherath, Belgium.
On July 1, 1984, Bradley Point Park’s flagpole was dedicated in memory of Soderman, who died in 1980.
Also in 2008, 14 grave markers signifying every war in U.S. history and peacetime were dedicated. The markers are mounted on granite posts.
In addition to overseeing the construction of all phases of the walkway, which was built by City Point Construction Co. of West Haven, Sabo supervised the design and placement of the granite Korean War and Soderman memorials, which were made by Shelley Bros. Monuments of Guilford.
In May 2015, the dedication of Phase 8 included the dedication of a granite stone in memory of Veterans Council President Lorelee “Lori” Grenfell, who died in 2015 at age 60. The memorial was crafted by Giordano Bros. Monuments of West Haven.
Last year’s phase included the dedication of a memorial to veterans of Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan. The granite monument stands next to the Korean War Memorial.
The phase also included the dedication of a memorial to nurses of the U.S. armed forces. The granite monument lies next to a memorial dedicating the Walk of Honor.
In fall 2025, for the first time since its dedication in 2003, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial’s black granite “wall” was expanded with a pair of adjoining sections featuring 35 new names.
The absolute black granite panels were installed by project coordinator Milestone Construction Services LLC of New Haven, which also prepared the site. The panels were procured by Connecticut Stone of Milford, and the inscriptions were crafted by the memorial’s original engraver, Shelley Bros.
The panels, a project initiated in June 2023 by West Haven Vietnam Veterans Inc., were paid for by American Rescue Plan Act funds and dedicated last Veterans Day.
Then, in February, the West Haven Vietnam Memorial Inc. Committee launched a second phase to recognize 10 additional current and former city residents who served in-country during the Vietnam War by inscribing their names on the two panels.
The memorial wall shows the names of those from West Haven who served or gave their lives in Vietnam from 1959 to 1975, along with three white flagpoles draped with the American, Connecticut and prisoner-of-war flags.
The memorial also includes a black granite map of the four Vietnam battle districts bearing the inscription “All Gave Some, Some Gave All,” as well as five bronze insignia markers atop black granite posts representing each branch of the armed forces.