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It will always be Joe's street
Pipe Stave Hollow Road rechristened for PTSD victim
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| | | By Jean-Michael Salamanca | | |
December 10, 2008 | 02:46 PM
This was his block.
Family, friends, veterans, lawmakers and reporters gathered on a cold December morning this week at the intersection of Echo Avenue and Pipe State Hollow Road in Mount Sinai to remember a fallen hero. This was U.S. Army Private First-Class Joseph Dwyer's block when he was growing up, and now it will be his forever, following a rechristening ceremony that dubbed this small section of Pipe Stave Hollow Road "PFC Joseph P. Dwyer Road."
Dwyer, a combat medic with the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, gained fame via a March 2003 photo that showed him rescuing a wounded Iraqi child; some called it a defining image of the Iraq War's opening phases. The private — who would also earn military accolades for rescuing a wounded comrade in a combat situation — ended his tour of duty without serious physical injury, but with personal wounds that ran much deeper.
The extent of Dwyer's post-traumatic stress disorder soon became clear to his friends and loved ones. According to a New York Times editorial, in 2005 he fired several shots from a handgun in his Texas apartment and asked responding policemen to help him fend off Iraqi insurgents. Dwyer and his family told Newsday that same year that he'd crashed his car because he thought a box in the street was a roadside bomb. According to family friend Christopher Delaney of Lindenhurst, Dwyer also began abusing aerosol inhalants — a cry for help, Delaney said, that turned tragic in July, when Dwyer was found dead in his North Carolina apartment.
"Joe, he didn't want to die," Delaney said. "He wanted to live. He wanted to be with his wife, his daughter and his family."
The family friend said the public needs to become more aware of PTSD, which he claimed affects 30 percent of American soldiers returning from combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Not all injuries can be seen with the eye," agreed County Legislator Dan Losquadro (R-Shoreham), who stood with Dwyer's widow, Matina, and his mother, Maureen, at Monday's ceremony. "The physical injuries are sometimes the easiest ones to heal."
Delaney also called for changes in the way veterans are processed for demobilization when they return to the states.
"We have a lot of guys that are coming back that suffer from PTSD, but aren't clinically being told that they suffer from it because of the ... demobilization process," said Delaney, who has established a website (www.heroarmypfcjosephdwyer.com) to raise funds for Matina and Dwyer's 3-year-old daughter, Megan, and to increase awareness about PTSD and its effects on soldiers returning from war.
While the street will keep its familiar Pipe Stave Hollow designation on maps and for mailing and delivery purposes, it will also
be known by its new name, with a fresh green street sign hung Monday morning just below the existing signs.
The renaming ceremony was arranged jointly by Brookhaven Councilwomen Jane Bonner (C-Rocky Point) and Kathleen Walsh (R-Centereach) and was graced not only by numerous loved ones and elected officials, but by bagpipers from the Suffolk County Police Department and a county police helicopter, while members of the Mount Sinai and Miller Place fire departments unfurled a giant U.S. flag across the intersection.
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