New York XVIII

For reasons I cannot understand on my last visit to Long Island, I completely missed this magnificent memorial. So much for doing good research.

My 'Nam buddy of more than 50 years who lives on Long Island took me to see it on this trip.

The Suffolk County Vietnam Memorial sits atop Bald Hill in Farmingville, Long Island. At one time on this brief visit I thought I had located a couple of memorials in the area: Farmingville, Brookhaven, and Bald Hill. It turns out they are all the same place.

But what a place it is.

Bald Hill is 331 feet above sea level, one of the highest points on Long Island. In fact looking east you can see the Atlantic Ocean not far away.

 We first approached from west side of the memorial which had not been cleared and attempted to trudge through the frozen snow and icy footsteps of someone braver (and probably younger) then John and I.

We discovered that the memorial was actually much further away that it looks and we would have needed to tread down into a deep ravine and up the other side in the ice and snow. We discovered the other entrance, on the east side and happily found this one cleared and an easy walk

to the memorial.

The memorial which looks, on first view, like it is a three sided triangular tower actually has a fourth very short side. I'm not sure why that is and can find nothing about the construction process. It is quite a sight. 100 feet tall and painted as if an American Flag is wrapped around its peak.

While there the light changed dramatically for a few minutes. The clouds came it and darkened the sky and then, suddenly, the sun peeked through and brilliantly lit the top portion of the spire. I was fortunate to have been standing there.

The memorial was built in cooperation with the local Vietnam Veterans of America and was dedicated on November 11th, 1991. It sits in nearly the center of Long Island and if traveling near Farmingville on Route 83 it will be hard to miss.

Our next visit, on the 20th, will be to Pennsylvania, so meet me there at 9:00am.

To see other memorials from New York, or any other state, please click the state name on the left side of this page.