Cpl. Michael J. Crescenz
Press of Atlantic City...
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Hometown: Philadelphia, PA/Sea Isle City, NJ. Died: November 20, 1968 Age: 19 Unit: Company A, 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment Michael J. Crescenz was born in Philadelphia on January 14, 1949. He graduated from St. Athanasius School in the West Oak Lane section of Philadelphia in 1962 and from Cardinal Dougherty High School in 1966. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in February 1968. He shipped out to Vietnam in September 1968, the same month that his older brother Charles, a United States Marine who had served 13 months in Vietnam, was discharged from active duty.
Crescenz received a posthumous promotion to the rank of Corporal. He was the only Philadelphian to receive the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War. He was survived by his parents and five brothers. His Medal of Honor was presented to his family by President Richard M. Nixon in a White House ceremony on April 7, 1970. To respect his parents' wishes, Cpl. Crescenz was buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, in Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania. In 2008, after the death of his parents, Michael Crescenz was re-interred at Arlington National Cemetery. The Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center has been renamed the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz, Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center. (http://vaww.philadelphia.va.gov/) Medal of Honor
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Sea Isle City honors Medal of Honor recipient...
SEA ISLE CITY – To the hundreds who turned out Tuesday morning for the island’s annual Veterans Day ceremony, Michael Crescenz was as a Vietnam War hero, a young man connected to the resort through the summers he spent there. To his family, Crescenz was always a hero. Forty-six years after his death repelling a North Vietnamese attack on his unit, time has done little to dim the cherished memories held by his five surviving brothers. “You don’t forget,” said Joe Crescenz, 58, from his Pennsylvania hospital bed a day before Sea Isle City dedicated 46th Street to the memory of Michael J. Crescenz.
“Me being the oldest and him being the next down, we were always battling,” said Charles Crescenz III, 67, following the awarding of a duplicate street sign to the three brothers who attended the street dedication. Work obligations prevented the fifth brother, Steve Crescenz, 56, who served with the Coast Guard in the late 1970s, from joining them.
The Crescenz family’s roots at 109 46th St. extend back to their paternal grandparents, Charles Sr. and Cecilia, who bought the homestead in the mid-1940s, and through their parents, Charles Jr. and Mary Ann, who married in Sea Isle City after first meeting as teenagers on the beach. Both Crescenz patriarchs served in the military, too: Charles Sr. in World War I and Charles Jr. in World War II. “It was always a competition,” Charles said of Michael, who was 18 months younger. “I was faster and he was stronger.” “He was my best friend,” said Pete Crescenz, 63, whose military service was as a Marine reservist. “He used to take care of me all the time, any kind of trouble I got in.”
“I remember Mike, one time when my parents didn’t want him to go out of the house on a date when he was 16, was so mad he punched a wall and broke his hand,” said Chris Crescenz, 53. “There was always a dent in the wall after that.”
Chris was 7 years old when the United States Army sent a messenger to the family home in the West Oak Lane section of Philadelphia with the news that 19-year-old Michael, a rifleman who singlehandedly took out three enemy machine gun bunkers, had been killed in action on Nov. 20, 1968. He had been in Vietnam for two months, shipping out before Charles III returned home from his 13-month tour as a combat Marine.
“It was a Saturday in late November, and I was the guy who answered the door,” said Joe Crescenz. “It was a little after 7 in the morning and my dad was upstairs shaving in the bathroom and mom was in the kitchen getting breakfast for the boys. ‘Hey, Pop,’ ” Joe said he remembers shouting to his father, “ ‘there’s a guy here from the Army in his dress greens.’ That was the notification of the casualty.”
Joe Crescenz was 12 years old at the time. “I was that naive,” he said of his ignorance in not recognizing the significance of the uniformed stranger at his door. “Pop knew right away and came downstairs without finishing shaving. Mom was in the kitchen at the back of the house … you could hear that pan drop on the kitchen floor.” He said he recalls leaving the room to give his parents some space after “they gave me that look” but he doesn’t remember where he went or what he did. “That’s when things got crazy,” Joe Crescenz said.
Michael Crescenz was posthumously promoted to corporal and awarded the Medal of Honor. In two weeks, the duplicate of his Sea Isle City street sign will be donated by his brothers to their local VFW post in Philadelphia, at which time it will be rededicated as Michael J. Crescenz Rising Sun VFW Post 2819.
The street dedication followed an hour long ceremony at Veterans Park, which included remarks from various speakers; the presentation of Quilts of Valor to seven veterans, including Leonard Bonitt, who was discharged from the Army 69 years ago in 1945; and the waving of 250 small flags provided by Cape May County Sheriff Gary Shaffer as the lyrics to the song “Proud to be An American” played over the crowd.
“Me being the oldest and him being the next down, we were always battling,” said Charles Crescenz III, 67, following the awarding of a duplicate street sign to the three brothers who attended the street dedication. Work obligations prevented the fifth brother, Steve Crescenz, 56, who served with the Coast Guard in the late 1970s, from joining them.
The Crescenz family’s roots at 109 46th St. extend back to their paternal grandparents, Charles Sr. and Cecilia, who bought the homestead in the mid-1940s, and through their parents, Charles Jr. and Mary Ann, who married in Sea Isle City after first meeting as teenagers on the beach. Both Crescenz patriarchs served in the military, too: Charles Sr. in World War I and Charles Jr. in World War II. “It was always a competition,” Charles said of Michael, who was 18 months younger. “I was faster and he was stronger.” “He was my best friend,” said Pete Crescenz, 63, whose military service was as a Marine reservist. “He used to take care of me all the time, any kind of trouble I got in.”
“I remember Mike, one time when my parents didn’t want him to go out of the house on a date when he was 16, was so mad he punched a wall and broke his hand,” said Chris Crescenz, 53. “There was always a dent in the wall after that.”
Chris was 7 years old when the United States Army sent a messenger to the family home in the West Oak Lane section of Philadelphia with the news that 19-year-old Michael, a rifleman who singlehandedly took out three enemy machine gun bunkers, had been killed in action on Nov. 20, 1968. He had been in Vietnam for two months, shipping out before Charles III returned home from his 13-month tour as a combat Marine.
“It was a Saturday in late November, and I was the guy who answered the door,” said Joe Crescenz. “It was a little after 7 in the morning and my dad was upstairs shaving in the bathroom and mom was in the kitchen getting breakfast for the boys. ‘Hey, Pop,’ ” Joe said he remembers shouting to his father, “ ‘there’s a guy here from the Army in his dress greens.’ That was the notification of the casualty.”
Joe Crescenz was 12 years old at the time. “I was that naive,” he said of his ignorance in not recognizing the significance of the uniformed stranger at his door. “Pop knew right away and came downstairs without finishing shaving. Mom was in the kitchen at the back of the house … you could hear that pan drop on the kitchen floor.” He said he recalls leaving the room to give his parents some space after “they gave me that look” but he doesn’t remember where he went or what he did. “That’s when things got crazy,” Joe Crescenz said.
Michael Crescenz was posthumously promoted to corporal and awarded the Medal of Honor. In two weeks, the duplicate of his Sea Isle City street sign will be donated by his brothers to their local VFW post in Philadelphia, at which time it will be rededicated as Michael J. Crescenz Rising Sun VFW Post 2819.
The street dedication followed an hour long ceremony at Veterans Park, which included remarks from various speakers; the presentation of Quilts of Valor to seven veterans, including Leonard Bonitt, who was discharged from the Army 69 years ago in 1945; and the waving of 250 small flags provided by Cape May County Sheriff Gary Shaffer as the lyrics to the song “Proud to be An American” played over the crowd.
