The Tribute to a Little-Known Soldier | The Free Press - By
Joe Nocera - A small plaque to a young veteran in a New York park tells a very American story of sacrifice.
"...In 1996 the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation added another war memorial in Bennett Park, this one dedicated to the memory of a man—a kid, really—who had grown up in the neighborhood and had been killed during World War II.
His name was
Emilio Barbosa. The inscription said that he was a native of Nicaragua who had lived on Pinehurst Avenue, a street that borders the west side of the park.
At 17 he joined the Marines and
spent the next two years manning a 20mm gun turret on the USS Nevada, fighting first at Normandy Beach and then in the Pacific theater.
He died at the age of 19, when a Japanese kamikaze pilot flew into the Nevada as she bombarded Okinawa.
Barbosa’s small plaque, low to the ground and under a tree, is easy to miss.
But I’ve found myself lingering over it from time to time,
wondering about the man it honors—imagining, for instance,
how terrifying it must have been as that Japanese plane closed in on him...
