With Veterans Day arriving next week, on Tuesday the East Hampton Town Board considered ways to honor veterans and active-duty members of the armed forces, including a celebrated veteran who lived in Montauk.
Suffolk County has designated as surplus a small piece of land at the northeast corner of the West Lake Drive-Flamingo Avenue intersection, at the entrance to the Montauk dock area. The County Legislature subsequently transferred it to the town, with the purpose of establishing the John Behan Memorial Park.
A former town assessor, Mr. Behan, who died last year, was a nine-term New York State assemblyman. He later headed the state’s veterans affairs office and served as chairman of the East Hampton Town Republican Committee.
As a United States Marine serving in Vietnam in 1966, he lost both of his legs above the knee to an anti-tank mine while defending his patrol from machine gun fire. Many years later, he returned to Vietnam, leading a 1985 state delegation to retrieve the remains of American soldiers and a subsequent visit to bestow a donation on an organization that was clearing the land of unexploded ordnance and land mines.
After his service, Mr. Behan returned to Long Island and worked for his family’s party fishing boat, the Peconic Queen. In the 1980s, he erected the sign that welcomes visitors to the harbor and notes Montauk’s status as a fishing capital.
Mr. Behan “was recognized and decorated seven times, including with the state’s highest military honor, the Conspicuous Service Cross,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said on Tuesday. “He’s somebody who overcame very, very large obstacles in his life, and not only did he overcome them but his service to our country was heroic. But his response to his injuries was even more heroic, in my mind.” Mr. Behan, he said, was re-elected with the largest majority of any assemblyman in the state, winning 70 percent of the vote in 1994.
Coincidentally, or not, Mr. Behan was born on Nov. 11, Veterans Day.
Legislator Bridget Fleming attended the meeting via video conference. “John Behan was an inspiration to so many people,” she said. “His extraordinary sacrifice on behalf of our country, and then his really incredible resilience and ability to continue to serve despite devastating injuries, is really inspiring.” Mr. Behan “was a big supporter of women in public office, and proactively reached out to those of us who are in public service to give us guidance,” she said.
Mr. Behan’s wife, Marilyn, also attended the meeting. She described the planned memorial as “a beautification project rather than a memorial, but I appreciate whatever you want to call it, because he would love it.”
Donations for the memorial will be made through the Montauk Boatmen and Captains Association. Joe McBride, of the association, said that Mr. Behan and his family “are the model of a family in a community, that has contributed to that community and, in this specific case, the harbor of Montauk.”
Ms. Behan asked that a ceremonial groundbreaking be planned for Veterans Day, on Friday, Nov. 11, which could draw attention to the planned memorial.
“We’re very happy to help in any way we can,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said, “and look forward to that groundbreaking on Veterans Day.”
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the board planned a resolution to be voted on today that would designate parking spaces in lots throughout the town for veterans and active-duty members of the armed forces. Use of the spaces would be on the honor system, Councilman David Lys said.
The Towns of Southampton, Oyster Bay, and Brookhaven, as well as the county, have similar policies in place, said Hope DeLauter, an assistant town attorney. Use of the spaces on the “honesty policy,” she said, would require no code changes and would be the most efficient and effective way to implement such a policy.
Locations under consideration are the parking lot at Town Hall, the municipal lot in Montauk near the hamlet’s post office, the municipal lot north of Amagansett’s Main Street, and Atlantic Avenue Beach, also in Amagansett. At the meeting, Mr. Lys added another Amagansett parking lot, at the Lt. Lee A. Hayes Youth Park.
