Pulaski Street School to Honor Hometown Hero

This past September, the post office on West Main Street was officially named for Pfc. Garfield M. Langhorn, recipient of the nation’s highest military decoration for extraordinary bravery that cost him his life in Vietnam.

And soon, the memory of Riverhead’s greatest home-gown hero – a 1968 graduate of Riverhead High School – will live on at Pulaski Street School as well.

At its meeting Tuesday evening, the Riverhead Board of Education voted unanimously to name the school’s library after Langhorn, with a dedication ceremony expected to take place sometime in April.

David Densieski, the school’s principal, gave the reason for honoring the hero.

“We’d like to promote the faith, values and principles Garfield possessed to make such a sacrifice,” Densieski said.

His reference was to that January morning in 1969 in Thuan Thien Province when Langhorn, a radio operator with the 17th Air Calvary Division, fell on a grenade to shield others.

Twenty-years-old at the time and only three months in Vietnam, Langhorn was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for what the citation called “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity.”

He was one of only 245 Americans awarded the medal for bravery in Vietnam and one of 154 to receive it posthumously.

 “Choosing to protect those already wounded,” the citation read, “he unhesitatingly threw himself on the grenade, scooped it beneath his body and absorbed the blast. By sacrificing his life, he saved the lives of comrades.”

President Richard Nixon presented the medal to Langhorn’s family, including his mother, Mary, at a White House ceremony in 1970.

“I think it’s wonderful,” Ms. Langhorn, 86, said Wednesday of the library naming. “It keeps the memory of Garfield alive and children will always know about what he did.”

Densieski noted that Pulaski School is an appropriate site at which to honor Langhorn because the building had been Riverhead High School when he was a student there.

 “This is the place where Pfc. Langhorn once walked the halls,” Densieski said.

 A bust of Langhorn stands in front of Riverhead Town Hall. He was also honored two years ago by his former unit, which named a conference center after him at its headquarters at Fort Campbell, Ky.