FREEHOLD – The Cpl. Philip A. Reynolds Detachment 203, Marine Corps League, recently conducted a brief, but moving wreath laying ceremony at the gravesite of Pvt. Thomas T. Fallon, a Civil War hero whose Congressional Medal of Honor was recently returned to the family by Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ).
Fallon, an Irish immigrant who made his home in Freehold, is a grand-uncle of Marine Corps League member Glenn Cashion of Middletown.
Smith secured the Medal of Honor from Fort Knox, Ky., where it had been stored since June after being returned to the Army from a Pennsylvania college where it had been lying in
obscurity since 1957, according to a press release.
Cashion, formerly of Freehold, presented lineage records that showed he is a surviving nephew of the man who earned the Medal of Honor for battles in three different locations during the Civil War.
Cashion and Jeff Volmar, chaplain of the detachment, gave a brief history of Fallon and quoted from Walt Whitman’s Civil War poem “Oh Captain! My Captain!” after placing the wreath on the Fallon grave in St. Rose of Lima Cemetery, Freehold Township.
Fallon died in 1916 and his grave includes a footstone highlighting his Army career, as well as a bronze marker signifying he is a Medal of Honor recipient, according to the press release.
Participating in the ceremony were Fallon family members Glenn Cashion and his wife, Karen; Megan Cashion (great-great niece); Grant Elman (great-great nephew); Mickey Shave, husband of Virginia Shave (great-great niece); and Marine Corps League members Jeff Volmar, chaplain and past commandant, Phil Della Torre, adjutant and past commandant, Tim Rohan, Past Commandant Ray Tweten, Paymaster and Past Commandant Matt Veprek Jr., Past Commandant Charlie Butkus and Pat Lawlor.