Veterans hall adds 12 to roll

• By JEREMY HARPER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Nov 12, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Twelve Louisiana natives were inducted into the Louisiana Veterans Hall of Honor on Tuesday, including U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Ryan McCurdy, a 20-year-old from Baton Rouge who died while rescuing a fellow Marine in Fallujah, Iraq, two years ago.

McCurdy and the 11 other men join 46 others in the Hall of Honor, which recognizes Louisiana veterans and active-duty personnel who have served in the armed forces since World War II.

The awards were part of a patriotic program to honor past and present members of the nation’s armed forces Tuesday at the Old State Capitol.

“It’s not too late to find a veteran, to find their family, to find those with family serving overseas, and thank them for their service and their sacrifice,” keynote speaker Gov. Bobby Jindal said.

The honorees came from each branch of the service — including work with NASA — and ranged in ranks from generals to a paratrooper medic profiled in the book and TV series “Band of Brothers.”

Other Baton Rouge natives inducted Tuesday into the Hall of Honor, in the USS Kidd Veterans Memorial & Museum, include the late Marine Corps Gen. Robert Barrow Sr., Marine Corps Maj. Gen. George Bowman and Army Lt. Gen. William Webster Jr., the deputy commander of U.S. Northern Command headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo.

More than 325,000 Louisiana residents have served in the armed forces and some 27,000 are in the military, according to the Governor’s Office.

State Veterans Affairs Secretary Lane Carson said the state’s Military Family Assistance Fund, established in 2005, has raised nearly $400,000 in private donations to help families of active-duty soldiers.

Jindal said this week he signed an executive order for Louisiana to participate in a U.S. Army program designed to set up state job interviews for returning soldiers.

Under the order, state agencies will try to recruit former Army and reserve soldiers who are honorably discharged from service. Jindal said Louisiana is only the third state to participate in the program.

“We have an obligation to take care of those who take care of us — not only after they serve, but while they’re serving,” Jindal said.

At Tuesday’s ceremony, the Baton Rouge Music Club Chorus sang patriotic songs and bagpipers played “Amazing Grace.”

The audience, many of them older veterans, stood silently in the old legislative chamber as the USS Kidd fired in tribute.