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War Hero Buried 40 Years Ago Moves To Final Resting Place

POSTED: 5:10 pm EDT May 2, 2008
UPDATED: 7:43 pm EDT May 2, 2008

Emotions run high as a Vietnam War hero is moved from a grave in Montgomery County to his final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery.


Images | Video Report



The Crescenz brothers gather at the Holy Sepulchre Cemetary in Cheltenham Township to give their brother Michael a final farewell before they move his casket to Virginia.

"It's a happy day because we're going to be moving him to where he belongs," Charles Crescenz, Michael's brother, said.

Forty years ago Michael was killed in the Vietnam War.

He was 19.

"He was buried here because my parents at the time when they were alive we didn't live that far from here and they wanted him close to home. My brother Joe started the ball rolling he felt Mike should be in Arlington," Crescenz said.

Arlington National Cemetery will soon be Michael's resting place.

"A lot of combat veterans from WWII and Korea who I've worked with and Vietnam vets have all said the same thing to me -- why is that boy not down in Arlington," Joseph Crescenz, Micael's brother, said.

But saying goodbye again is as tough as it was 40 years ago.

"It's, you know, being a 12-year-old kid and seeing one of your brothers die in battle," Joseph Crescenz said.

"He was a great guy. Super guy," Peter Crescenz, Michael's brother, said.

"There's always a blank there because he's not around," Charles Crescenz said.

Bill Stafford has lived with that void, too. He served in Michael's unit and said Michael saved his life.

"I got to have a family and kids thanks to him," Bill Stafford, a Vietnam veteran, said.

The nation also recognized his sacrifice.

President Richard Nixon gave the family a congressional medal of honor. Michael is the only Philadelphian from the Vietnam War to ever receive one.

And now another honor, as five brothers give the one they have had to live without a final farewell.

"He would want to be there with his comrades," Stephen Crescenz, Michael's brother, said. "He's a hero and at this time we need our heroes to be together rather than apart."

Michael will be taken to Arlington on May 12 and buried with full military honors.

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