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Gene Glasco Shines a Beacon on Arcadia Vietnam War Memorial
Arcadia Weekly May 23, 2018
With expenditures in excess of revenues the city’s structural deficit will remain for the foreseeable future. – Courtesy photo
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May 26 ceremony to mark new dusk-to-dawn lighting at Arcadia monument
By Gene Glasco and Terry Miller
Gene Glasco enlisted in the United States navy in 1967. He was deployed to South Vietnam’s Mekong Delta in 1969.
Gene is a native Californian. Once in Vietnam, Gene was first assigned to Naval Support Activity- Nha Be as a Radioman in the communications center.
It’s been almost two years since a tractor and double-bed trailer from Redding, delivered the eleven-ton concrete and bronze Arcadia Vietnam War Monument to the Arcadia County Park.
The ever so humble Gene Glasco told Arcadia Weekly Tuesday, that this project is not about him. However, without him the monument to honor local Vietnam Veterans might never have be completed.
Memorial Day 2018 will mark the second anniversary of the monument’s dedication where hundreds witnessed a moving observance which paid tribute to fourteen Arcadia servicemen who lost their lives in one of the longest and most divisive wars in history.
As a result of tireless efforts, Glasco will once again be in the public spotlight, this time for the activation of six in-ground LED lights that will enhance the Vietnam monument, its plaques, as well as the three flags above it from dusk to dawn every day of the year.
Glasco, Arcadia City Clerk and Founder of the Arcadia Vietnam Memorial, said the after-dark lighting on the monument was always in his long-range plans but were put ‘on-hold’ due to budgetary restraints. A fundraising dinner sponsored by the Arcadia Women’s Club last November, along with donations from community and veterans’ groups and families of those killed in Vietnam, secured the needed funds to pay for the lighting equipment and subsequent albeit complex installation.
“With the addition of these beautiful new lights to the Monument,” Glasco said, “veterans and their families will have a place to reflect on the sacrifices our service people have made and continue to make in protecting America’s freedom from powers who would like to take it from us”.
On Saturday evening, May 26 beginning at 7:00 p.m., the public is invited to participate in a pre-Memorial Day Ceremony that will include an Invocation by a Chaplain from the Arcadia/Monrovia VFW, the Presentation of Colors, Pledge of Allegiance, National Anthem, Tolling of the Honor Bell, Rifle Salute, and TAPS followed by a “Community Countdown” where the Arcadia Vietnam Monument’s lights will officially be activated for the first time. Before the Program begins there will be free coffee donated by Starbucks and, while they last, special custom made Monument cookies that are replicas of the Arcadia Vietnam Memorial Challenge Coin. To help sustain the Monument’s Upkeep and Improvement Fund, the Arcadia Women’s Club and Santa Anita Chapter DAR will be offering for sale women and men’s polo shirts embroidered with the Arcadia Vietnam Monument logo and the ever-popular Arcadia Vietnam Memorial Challenge Coin.
For more information and videos about the Arcadia Vietnam Monument please visit their newly revised website at: www.arcadiavietnammonument.org and their Facebook page at: www.Facebook.com/Arcadia Vietnam Memorial.
Schedule of the Arcadia Vietnam Memorial Lighting Ceremony:
7:00 p.m. Refreshments & fund raising items for sale
7:40-7:45 p.m. Program begins
7:45 p.m. Presentation of Colors
7:48 p.m. Pledge of Allegiance
7:49 p.m. National Anthem
7:51 p.m. Invocation
7:53 p.m. Introductions
8:00 p.m. Hon. Congresswoman Judy Chu
8:05 p.m. Hon. CA State Assemblymember Ed Chau
8:10 p.m. Hon. Mayor Peter Amundson-City of Arcadia
8:15 p.m. Tolling of Bell -Roll Call for Arcadia’s 14 Servicemen
8:20 p.m. Rifle Team-3 Volley Salute
8:23 p.m. TAPS
8:26 p.m. Benediction
8:30 p.m. Activation of Monument Lights
“At the going down of the sun and in the morning…we shall remember them”-Lawrence Binyon
Caption for Gallery:
Arcadia City Clerk and founder of the Vietnam Memorial in Arcadia, Gene Glasco, is putting the finishing touches on the lighting project which will shed a new light on Glasco’s project that has been years in the making. – Photos by Terry Miller / Beacon Media News
