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Veterans Day Parade icon Patrick Gualtieri dies at Bklyn VA Hospital at age 70

Veterans Day Parade icon Patrick Gualtieri dies at Bklyn VA Hospital at age 70
Rubenstein Communications

Brooklyn Vietnam vet Patrick Gualtieri, who returned from the killing fields to a pauper’s welcome and made the city’s Veterans Day Parade into a national salute for war heroes, died at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Fort Hamilton on July 21 from cancer. He was 70 years old.

The gravelly-voiced grandson of Italian immigrants from Bensonhurst spent half of his two-year service in the army fighting in the Tet Offensive. He later described the wretchedness of lying deep in the jungle watching an American gunship rain down fire upon the North Vietnamese regulars.

“I had mixed feelings, happy to be alive, yet saddened that so many would die,” he said.

Gualtieri, a New York State Senate’s Veterans Hall of Fame inductee, arrived home in 1968 to a frosty reception.

“I came back to a less-than-grateful nation,” he told the New York Daily News in 2012. “It was very odd. I swear, I’d be walking in the street and see a kid in jungle fatigues, and he’s got a peace symbol on there and an American flag upside down.”

The event producer, who had never attended a veterans parade before, whipped the struggling city spectacle into shape as executive director of the United War Veterans Council, later commenting that the activity gave him a feeling of homecoming.

“All of a sudden, I’m with other Vietnam vets, and they’re going, ‘Welcome home,’ ” he reportedly said. “This is all new to me, right? That’s what Vietnam veterans do. They say, ‘Welcome home,’ because they never got welcomed home. Whooooa! Heavy duty.”

For the next 13 years on Veterans Day, Gualtieri drew upwards of 25,000 marchers to Fifth Avenue in Manhattan — and had the parade broadcast nationwide and aired on Armed Forces TV to every American military installation and ship in the world — as active-duty military units, veterans groups, and student marching bands all strode alongside political and military brass.

Colleagues praised Gualtieri as a true-blue advocate.

“The veterans community mourns the loss of a giant, who devoted his life to honoring those who served,” said Vincent McGowan, founding president of the United War Veterans Council. “Pat’s boundless energy and unflagging goodwill helped drive our efforts to shape a world-class effort to honor service on November 11 and every day of the year.”

Mike Rinder, whose mother worked with Gualtieri, recalled him with affection.

“One only needed to tell Pat what they wanted, and he would find a way to make it happen, with a great big smile on his face,” Rinder said.

Patrick Gualtieri is survived by his daughters Tara Mendelson and Gayla Gualtieri, his brother Joseph, a grandson and granddaughter, and his life partner Marlene “Molly” Levi.

A wake will be held at Cusimano and Russo Funeral Home in Gravesend on Sat. July 25 from 2–5 pm and 7–10 pm, followed by a memorial service on Sun. July 26 from 11 am to 2 pm. Memorial donations may be made to Friends of Vietnam Veterans Plaza and The United War Veterans Council.