PFC. Steven A. Gershnow – Mission Accomplished

By Eric Spinner

Fifty-one years after being killed in action in Vietnam, members of JWV’s Nassau-Suffolk District found the neglected headstone of Steven Gershnow at New Montefiore Cemetery in Farmingdale, New York. They found the headstone on June 11, 2018, but it took until September 17, 2020 to complete the restoration.

Like so many others in his generation, Gershnow enlisted in the United States Army and went to Vietnam. Just three weeks after his deployment in June of 1968, he died after coming under attack in Bin Duong Province. The Woodmere, New York native served with 1st Infantry Division, 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry, D Company. Gershnow was just 23 years old.

Our JWV team, consisting of Department of New York Commander Jack Holzman and Ensign Lawrence D. Solowey Post 652 Commander Gary Glick contacted the cemetery’s groundskeeper Thomas Whelan after finding the neglected gravestone. It turns out that getting a gravestone restored is not such a simple procedure, and it took 27 months to get through all the red tape.

Volume 75. Number 1. 2021