ROTC cadets salute older warriors on Veterans Day

By KATHY CHANG
Staff Writer

 Cadets in the Princeton University ROTC program visit 24 military veterans who live at the Brandywine Senior Living facility in Princeton on Nov. 11.  KATHY CHANG/STAFF Cadets in the Princeton University ROTC program visit 24 military veterans who live at the Brandywine Senior Living facility in Princeton on Nov. 11. KATHY CHANG/STAFF SOUTH BRUNSWICK — The Brandywine Senior Living facility in Princeton celebrated its 24 military veterans with a luncheon and special visit from the Princeton University Army Reserve Officer Training Corps [ROTC] on Veterans Day.

The young cadets in their dress blues — representing the U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy and Merchant Marines, along with their leader, Lt. Col. George P. Wilcha — provided the veterans with caps representing the military branch they served in.

“These veterans are so proud of their service to this country and they proudly wear these caps,” Wilcha said.

The lieutenant colonel said that, as Americans, it is easy take one’s freedoms for granted.

“We wake up each day in safety, free to live our lives how we see fit,” he said. “We do not wake to religious persecution or being held within our country’s borders, not being allowed to venture away from home.”

Wilcha said Americans wake up being able to pursue individual goals of education without being cast into a society where one’s worth is based upon what class one was born into.

He said he found a definition of a veteran on the Internet by Father Denis Edward O’Brien of the U.S. Marine Corps.

The definition takes one on a journey of the soldier, who was a cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia, the barroom loudmouth, the nurse who fought against futility, the prisoner of war, the Quantico drill instructor, the riding Legionnaire, the career quartermaster, the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery to the old guy bagging groceries, and the ordinary and yet extraordinary human being.

“When I was reading it, I had to hold myself back a bit,” he said.

On a day like Veterans Day, Nov. 11, it is important to thank veterans young and old, he said.

“This is our first visit here, and for the young cadets it is a rewarding experience for them and gives them a different perspective from people my age, as well as these World War II veterans,” Wilcha said.

Wilcha is a career military man. He enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve in 1976 and served five years as a Marine rifleman and mortar man.

He served 22 years with the Police Department in Yonkers, N.Y., before retiring in 2001 as a police lieutenant.

Wilcha has been the executive officer and assistant director of the Army Officer Education Program at Princeton University ROTC, which encompasses Rowan University and The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), since January 2012.

During the luncheon, Stanley Hoffman, a World War II veteran, read “When I Die” by Sal J. Scialo, of Yonkers, who was with Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 9th Foot, 2nd Division.

South Brunswick Mayor Frank Gambatese, who is a veteran himself — having served from 1954 to 1958 in the Air Force — then greeted his fellow veterans.

One such veteran is Victor Kovacs, who served during World War II with the medical hospital unit. Kovacs entered the Army in 1941 at the age of 18 and served in Northern Africa, Italy and Morocco.

“These young kids — 17, 18 years old — came to me shot up and they are in my arms crying for their mothers,” he said, recalling his service days. “You never forget that.”

His cousin, William A. Csehi of New Brunswick, joined him during the luncheon. He is a Marine who served in the South Pacific from 1942 to 1945.

Mark Curran, a senior at TCNJ, Michael Bacon, a junior at Princeton, and Kyle Brands, a junior at TCNJ, said visits like these let them evaluate what they are doing.

“Whatever military branch, we support and stand with each other,” said Curran. “

Curran, Bacon and Brands said they appreciate the veterans who served in the past for the freedoms that they have now like spending days studying for their education.

“For them to be able to stand strong, even cracking jokes when they had it 10 times worse, says a lot,” Curran said.