Yorktown Veteran Newest Inductee for Wall of Fame
Lang was honored at a ceremony at Mildred E. Strang Middle School recently by State Senator Terrence Murphy (R/Yorktown) and Yorktown Schools Superintendent Ralph Napolitano and district staff, as well as members of the American Legion, the middle school chorus and teacher Christopher Dipasquale’s Living History club, who greeted Lang in full Revolutionary War regalia.
“Mr. Lang, clearly you and your fellow veterans present here are among the kind of people who make change and a difference and a contribution to the world, not just nice words to be spoken, but thoughtful and effective actions to be taken,” Napolitano said.
Lang can vividly recall leaving his homeland of Hungary almost 60 years ago, under the most dire of circumstances. Like many Jewish families in the Eastern European country, he lived through the horrific ordeal of the Holocaust.
“My mother was in a concentration camp and my father was in slave labor,” he said. “My mother did not live long. The camp was way too much for her and she passed away by the time I was six years old.”
But the Soviet liberation of the camps did not bring lasting peace. In 1956 the Hungarian Revolution against the ruling Soviet Union started, leaving the nation in turmoil. At nine years old, Lang’s father and stepmother set up something with a taxi driver who took and he and his brother through armed checkpoints to a safe house on the Austrian border.
“Once it got dark we were told to go out to the back alleys and to a guy who we paid off,” Lang said. Then he would whistle and another guy would whistle on the other side and he would take us so far. When we got to fields he said the Russians put out landmines, but he knew where the landmines are. He said if you see a flag go up or if they start shooting at you, hit the ground. Needless to say, we were lucky.”
Lang, 69, a Yorktown resident for 28 years, would not only make his way to America and become a U.S. citizen but a soldier in the U.S. Army, where he fought in the Vietnam War in the 1st Air Cavalry Division in the Battle of Keh-Sanh. While manning a mortar in that battle, he was shot and wounded.
“I was put in a helicopter and sent to a Marine Camp where the shrapnel was removed from my knee,” he said. “I had a big hole in my leg and they just wrapped it up and that day I was back in the field.”
Lang retired from Verizon 10 years ago after 40 years with the company. His children attended Lakeland schools.
Lang said he was the only one of his friends drafted, even though he was the only immigrant among them, but said was not bitter about it.
“I served my country and I served proudly,” he said.
Murphy, who has continued the tradition of the traveling Wall of Fame from his predecessor, Greg Ball, told those on hand that Lang, a Purple Heart recipient, was a true hero and the kind of person everyone should look up to. He said the Wall of Fame events help spotlight such unsung heroes.
“This is a great story, and you wouldn’t hear about it unless something like this happens,” Murpy said. “We don’t do enough for our veterans and if they ever need something hopefully they’ll call our office”
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