Hundreds honor fallen heroes at Laishley Park

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PUNTA GORDA, Fla. Former Marine Escort Ronald Suciu knows firsthand the cost of freedom.

He was wounded in Vietnam and witnessed many lives lost in war.

“I can’t pick up the phone and call some of the men I was closest to because they’re dead,” Suciu said. “There’s a sense of loss, there’s a vacuum there.”

He shared his experience in the keynote address to hundreds who turned out to the annual Memorial Day ceremony at Laishley Park.

“Guys that I went to school with, played ball with, and that were classmates in college and high school, all Army,” Suciu said. “Bateman, Singer, Schultz, Frost, all Marines who were with me in Vietnam and 18 other names of marines that I carried home to their families for burials.”

Suciu recalls his time serving the country as oddly psychologically satisfying.

“The families wanted to know about the war,” he said. “They wanted you to talk about it. They wanted to know what your experience was because it gave them some insight into what their own sons’ experience was.”

To Suciu and other combat veterans, Monday is more than just a holiday. It’s a day to honor fallen comrades in arms.

And that’s true for those who fought when it wasn’t popular to do so, Suciu said.

“Veterans don’t make the policy; we enforce it,” he said. “We carry it out and we do that because we’ve taken an oath to do that. And if you talk to most veterans and you say, ‘Would you do that again?’ they would say yes.”

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