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The Memorial was dedicated on the night of May 6, 1985. A throng of thousands gathered at Vietnam Veterans Plaza, overflowing into adjacent streets, to witness the ceremony and a spectacular display of fireworks put on by the Grucci Family. When Mayor Edward Koch hit the switch that lit up the memorial, the entire plaza erupted in a prolonged cheer.
The next morning, 25,000 veterans of the war, many wearing the uniforms in which they fought, massed in Cadman Plaza in downtown Brooklyn. Some sought out their units - the 1st Cavalry, the 4th Infantry, the 101st Airborne, the 3rd Marines; others marched in their current affiliation, as police officers, as firefighters, as lawyers and bankers and government officials, as black vets and Hispanic vets and gay vets. The parade was led by Mayor Koch and his police commissioner, Ben Ward, both veterans of an earlier war. They were flanked by 26 recipients of the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for bravery on the field of battle.
They marched over the Brooklyn Bridge, wave after wave after wave, to the cheers of one million New Yorkers. They marched past the reviewing stand erected on Broadway near City Hall. They marched down the Canyon of Heroes under a hail of "ticker tape" and confetti. This was the "Welcome Home" so many veterans had not been accorded 12 and 14 and 20 years earlier. It was a day of reunions: At the memorial, Medal of Honor recipient Gary Beikirch turned from reading a letter and, standing next to him, was the man who had put him, badly wounded, onto a medevac helicopter.
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