State roads in area named after servicemen
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Two state roads in Washington and Greene counties will be named after servicemen from Southwestern Pennsylvania who were killed in combat in Vietnam and Somalia.
The measure, proposed by State. Rep. Pam Snyder, D-Jefferson, was signed into law by Gov. Tom Wolf Wednesday.
Exit 28 of the Mon-Fayette Expressway Interchange with state Routes 43 and 88 in Centerville will be named the Marine Corporal Thomas R. Matty Memorial Interchange. The Route 88 bridge over Muddy Creek in Cumberland Township, Greene County, will be named the Army Cpl. Richard W. Kowalewski, Jr. Memorial Bridge.
Matty, of Denbo, was killed just six weeks after arriving in Vietnam at the age of 22. He was killed by artillery fire in the Quang Nam Province near Danang on Dec. 21, 1967.
“Bethlehem-Center High School still honors him with an award presented annually to a graduating senior,” Snyder said in a news release. “Soon, key infrastructure in the region will forever recall his sacrifice.”
Kowalewski, of Waynesburg and Crucible, joined the Army just two days after graduating from Carmichaels Area High School in 1992. He was deployed to Somalia in August 1993 as part of a United Nations peace-keeping operation. He was killed that same year during a search-and-rescue mission in Mogadishu.
“Cpl. Kowalewski was one of the 18 Ranger and Delta Force members killed in what has been described as the U.S. military’s single most costly firefight since Vietnam,” Snyder said.
Ceremonies for the two corporals will be arranged, and the state Turnpike Commission and Department of Transportation will erect signs at the two locations.