Hopatcong Renames Roads to Honor the Fallen

By Michael Daigle

They died nearly five decades apart, each serving their country in a separate distant land, fighting in different wars.

They never met, Army Spec. 4 John Curtin III and Army Sgt. Michael Kirspel Jr., but now will be forever linked in the hearts of their fellow residents and countrymen.

To the haunting skirl of bagpipes and standing in an intermittent rain, borough residents and officials took time out Saturday from the annual Hopatcong festival to honor their memories with the dedication of two road signs that will act as  permanent memorials to their sacrifice.

The signs were posted at the corner of River Styx and Hopatchung roads.  River Styx will be known as John Curtin III Way and Hopatchung as Michael D. Kirspel Jr. Way.

“These signs will remain here, in the center of our town forever to represent a promise that we will never forget the significance and sacrifice  of John and Michael, our fallen heroes,” said Mayor Sylvia Petillo. “Every time we pass by these signs we should  take a moment and remember.”

Dawn Roberts, Kirspel’s mother, said the ceremony also honors the sacrifice made by the families of fallen warriors.

She said the members of her son’s unit have become  “her second family.” They visit often and have provided strong support her for family.

The road signs say: “Spc. John Curtin, U.S. Army; 1968;” and “Sgt. Michael D. Kirspel Jr. Way, Iraq/Afghanistan; 2006-2010.

The dedication service took place during the 6th Annual Hopatcong Days festival, a celebration of small-town life.

The festival also is a time when the borough honors its veterans with a roll call, and the placement of a yellow wreath on the borough’s war memorial.

Curtin, 22, was killed Aug. 26, 1968, during a mortar attack in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon.

Petillo said the borough had been unaware of his service and death until it was brought to their attention  by another veteran. She addressed Curtin’s sister, Jane Curtin of Dover, personally.

“You waited 43 years. John’s service means a lot to us as does you’re being here,” Petillo said.

Petillo said Curtin was “ a typical boy growing up in the 50s and 60s. He loved Jamboree and camping, fishing, hiking, nature and the outdoors.”

He was not drafted into the Army, but enlisted twice. He served in Vietnam from Feb. 29, to Aug. 8, 1968, Petillo said.

Kirspel, 23, was killed by an improvised explosive device on Oct. 27, 2010, while fighting in Afghanistan.

At his funeral he was remembered as an outdoorsman who loved country music, four-wheeling and the outdoors.

Sgt Charles Dougherty, who served with Kirspel in the 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum , N.Y., said it was hard to believe that its been nearly three years since Kirspel died, “23-years-old on that clear, cold morning in Afghanistan … like so many of their generation taken before their time.”

Dougherty, fighting tears and a cracking voice as he spoke, said, “I think about what Mike’s life could have been if he had not raised his right hand and sworn loyalty to his country.  He could have gone to college, instead he chose to serve knowing full well there was a brutal war in his future.”

Kirspel “chose sacrifice and service,” Dougerty said. He did not think “about his own needs, what his life would have been like or what he gave up.”

Instead, “Michael’s mother, Dawn, will never see her son walk down the aisle, or dance at his wedding, because Michael chose to care more about others than himself. Maybe he would have grown old, old enough to tell his grandchildren  his ridiculous jokes. Or maybe retired to that cabin in the Blue Ridge mountain in Tennessee he mentioned several times.”

Dougherty said his friend, “Was meant to be a leader of men, a leader of men in combat. He was born to be  a soldier, a type of man who risked his own life for his men during intense firefights, and as much as it pains me  to know this, Michael was born so that one day he would be killed in Afghanistan and he would die in the arms of the men who loved him.”

Dougherty encouraged parents to tell their children about Kirspel, and “About the poor few who died to protect our way of life.”

He said he knows he will see his friend again.

“We will be in a place where hate, war and fear are just words and hold no meaning for us," Dougherty said.

“On Oct. 27, remember that day,” he said, “that day that one of your own raised his hand and gave his life for you.”