The weather didn't cooperate, but that didn't stop the dedication of two soon-to-be-built streets in Deptford that will be named in honor of local soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice.
19-year-old Private First Class Buddy Powell, a Bronze star recipient who was killed in action in Vietnam in 1966, and Lt. Salvatore Corma, who earned a Purple Heart and was killed by a landmine in Afghanistan in 2010. Corma's being considered posthumously for a Congressional Medal of Honor.
"What we're hoping is everybody will ask questions: who are those people on those street signs and we'll get to tell their stor," Deptford mayor Paul Medany said.
"For somebody like myself that knew both of them when people see this and they ask about it, I can tell them listen, this is who they were. They were real people," Deputy Sergeant George Johnson of the Deptford Police Department said.
The streets will be part of Georgetown Mews, a new development being built off Georgetown Road.
Action News spoke with Mary Sharp, Buddy Powell's niece.
"People have died for us to give us our freedom and now we're going to honor them and I just think it's a great thing to do," Sharp said.
Trudy Corma is touched that her son Sal is being remembered this way.
"This is a wonderful tribute and I think it's a good reminder for everybody that freedom isn't free. Somebody has to die for the rest of us," Corma said.
The families never forget when a loved one is killed at war, but naming streets after these fallen soldiers is an enduring way for their hometown to honor them.
"We have 30 on our wall and those 30, we're going to have a street named for every one of them by the time we get done," Deptford Councilman Joe Scott said.
That works for Trudy Corma who says although her late son might be embarrassed by the attention, he'd be the only one.
"My husband, he's up there in heaven with my son. So I'm sure my husband is tickled pink," Corma said.
