'Long Overdue' Bridge Dedication to Honor Fallen Vet

State Rep. Tom Murt recalls the months of prayers, when he was 8 years old, that the community collectively offered. 

And when the prayers stopped, the sad realization set in: a fellow Hatboro resident, Pfc. Joseph J. Lannon Jr., a Marine deployed to Vietnam in 1968, had been killed in combat. 

"It is my firmest conviction that we have never, ever done right by our Vietnam veterans," said Murt (R-152), an Iraq War veteran in a phone interview Thursday. "I always thought that it was a shame that they never had a permanent type of recognition for him." 

But, that's about to change. On Saturday - which also happens to be Armed Forces DayMurt, who championed legislation to rename the bridge over Pennypack Creek after Lannon, will hold a bridge dedication ceremony. 

"This is a small token of tribute and respect," Murt said of the bridge dedication, which will take place at 10 a.m. in Miller Meadow, located at the intersection of Horsham and York roads in Hatboro. 

The location chosen for Lannon's tribute is key. Murt said the Marine, who attended St. John Bosco School and graduated from in 1967, grew up a half block from the bridge. His family still lives nearby, he said. 

And while Lannon is the first fallen Vietnam vet from Hatboro to receive the "long overdue" recognition, Murt said he won't be the last. The other "four or five" will be honored, perhaps at a permanent memorial at, Murt said. 

"We're discerning the best way to do it," Murt said, adding that the fallen soldiers of all other wars, with the exception of Vietnam and Korea, are already recognized. "We want names on the marker."