I visited the Buono Memorial at Buono Beach in Rosebank. It was a 10 minute walk from my home. It was named after Matthew “Giggy” Buono, a Rosebank resident who was the 39th Staten Islander to be killed in the Vietnam War. The monument as a whole features the engraved names of veterans from the Rosebank/Fort Wadsworth area who have died in previous wars. The shape of the piece seems to be an allusion to the U.S. Army’s iconic symbol that was most commonly painted on armored vehicles during the second world war. It came to represent the United States’ armed forces as a whole. 

The memorial itself is fairly large, which caught my eye. The sheer scale of it, and the fact that it seemed to be made of solid granite, really made it stand out from the rest of the scenery in my neighborhood. And being a very “neighborhood-specific” piece, I’m sure it has a very special place in the hearts of many families here. 

It sends a very powerful and harrowing message about war, and its overreaching impacts on the lives of everyday people. Yet it was a very solemn experience, being in a quiet and secluded area of the neighborhood, somewhat off the beaten path. 

I definitely don’t think that this monument glorifies war in any way, yet it also gives people a sort of meaning in the senseless violence and sacrifice that characterizes many of these wars. It is a sort of cruel subversion of the idea of what it means to sacrifice yourself for a cause. People are told through memorials like this, that what these individuals did was a heroic act of selflessness, yet some of these wars were just a manifestation of the imperialist nature of post World War 2 United States. The very existence of the names carved into this monument, is a symbol of the failures of our administration.