Memorial message; Plaque preserves day's meaning.

• Author: Knothe, Alli
• Position: Local

Byline: Alli Knothe

WORCESTER -- It's been a challenge over the years for organizers to stay on top of vandalism at the Massachusetts Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Green Hill Park.

But on Sunday, the need for repairs brought together two veterans from different military backgrounds to continue the legacy of a third that was recognized Monday during Memorial Day ceremonies at the park

Thomas Wilson, a regular in the Army in the early 1980s, was visiting the memorial on Sunday with a friend when they came across retired Air Force Col. Henry Cyr and his wife struggling to install a small plaque on the back of a cast iron bench overlooking the pond, just inside the tree line.

The screws were rusted and mangled after a plaque that had been installed in 2003 had been stripped from the jet-black bench. Together, they were able to replace it before a thunderstorm began.

While Mr. Wilson and Mr. Cyr joked about the rivalry between their branches of the military and their differences in rank, both are also fathers of servicemen. Both had come to pay their respects.

"It's sacred in many ways,'' said Mr. Wilson, who lives down the street from the park and said he visits often. "All these guys are my brothers.''

Mr. Cyr told him the story of the young man on the plaque, one that clearly resonated with both men.

"He went out to serve his country like his father did,'' Mr. Cyr said. He knows the story well, and indeed helped raise money for the memorial bench more than a decade ago.

Pfc. John E. Shiraka, who loved spending quiet summer mornings fishing on Lake Quinsigamond, had just graduated from high school when he enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1968. His father, whom he and his brothers idolized, was a Marine who served in the Pacific during World War II.

"We were a Marine family,'' John's brother, Richard, who now lives in Naples, Fla., said Monday. "We wanted to be just like my father.''

So it was John, the oldest, who was the first to sign up for the service, with Richard enlisting later that year. Neither told their mother.

"I never expected the boys to do this,'' Rita Shiraka-Moss said in a 2003 interview with the Telegram & Gazette. "He did it without our permission, without even talking to us about it, and I was very, very upset.''

John left for training in September and Richard followed months later. She never fully forgave them, Richard said.

On his way to Vietnam in March, Richard was told that John had stepped on a mine and died, three weeks...