Marine Lance Corporal Jimmy Reddington was killed in Vietnam in 1967.
Two Purple Hearts and other medals awarded to a Marine killed in Vietnam were posthumously presented to the fallen hero at a ceremony Saturday in Pennsylvania.
Lance Corporal Jimmy Reddington, a Scranton native, was 19 when he was killed on March 23, 1967. He had been in Vietnam all of three months.
The ceremony-- held in downtown Scranton in time for Memorial Day-- attracted a large crowd, including Marines who served with Reddington in Vietnam in Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, the Scranton Times-Tribune reported.
“We remember today not just the Jimmy Reddingtons, but all who gave their life with honor for this country in all wars and all conflicts,” Ernie Preate Jr., a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War and chairman of the Friends of Jimmy Reddington Memorial Committee, told the crowd, according to the paper.
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Reddington was killed when he charged an enemy position, the paper reported. His friend and fellow soldier Joe Silvestri had just been badly wounded in an ambush.
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"I never wanted Jimmy to do that! I never wanted him to be that loyal to me but he was and not just to me but to the whole squad!" Silvestri told WBRE-TV Thursday.
Reddington’s parents and sister are dead so the medals were presented to the Marine Corps League in Scranton.
The Times-Tribune reported that a memorial service for Reddington with full military honors will be held Sunday at 11 a.m. at his grave in Cathedral Cemetery in Scranton.
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