Rededication set for Veterans Memorial Park
Twenty-eight years after originally dedicating Veterans Memorial Park, the DAV is going to do it all over again in honor of the woman who started it all.
Cape Coral’s local chapter of the Disabled American Veterans, James D. Rader No.108, will host a rededication ceremony for Veterans Memorial Park on Saturday, Sept. 19, at 10 a.m. The park is at 4140 Coronado Parkway. The public is invited to attend and is asked to arrive early.
The event is expected to be attended by representatives from the police and fire departments, school board, city and numerous military organizations such as the VFW, American Legion and AMVETS.
Among the speakers will be Al Linden, executive director of the DAV, and Marion Burke, who was commander of the organization and instrumental in founding the park in 1987.
The rededication was scheduled for this year so Burke, who is 91, could take part, organizers said.
“We wanted to speed it up for her benefit, ” said Larry “Stixxx” Tiller, commander of the DAV Chapter No. 108.
Others agreed that a thank you is both timely and overdue.
“Marion is still active with the DAV,” DAV member Don Proto said. “I think she deserves to experience the dedication again. She has a lot of good memories from it, she put time and effort into it and we want to give her a thank you for that. We want to do it while she’s in good health.”
The event will also include the Southwest Florida Military Museum’s bus, and refreshments will be served afterward at the museum at 4820 Lenoard Street.
The city has refurbished the remembrance wall at the park, and installed new landscaping and new flags, which should be finished this week.
The wall features a display of memorial plaques in remembrance of Disabled American Veterans, American Prisoners of War, Veterans of All Wars, Jewish War Veterans, Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, Gulf Coast Airborne Association and those missing in action.
“They’ve cleaned up the monument, the overgrown shrubberies around it and planted some new stuff and painted the concrete,” Tiller said. “It looks pretty good.”