These murals of U.S. Marine Sgt. Alfredo “Freddy” Gonzalez, who was killed during the Vietnam War and posthumously received the Medal of Honor, are located inside the H-E-B food store on Freddy Gonzalez Drive in Edinburg.
Megan Gonzalez | The Rider
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley will host a ceremony dedicated to veterans at 11 a.m. Friday on the Chapel Lawn in Edinburg and the Main Lawn in Brownsville.
In support of The Student Veterans of America (SVA), ROTC, also known as the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, will present the colors and Hidalgo County Justice of the Peace Pct. 2 Place 2 Jaime Muñoz will be the guest speaker in Edinburg.
Vocalists, including the Treble Thrivers, will sing the national anthem and other patriotic songs.
“We’re going to do a 21-gun salute, so there will be, you know, rifle fire,” SVA Sergeant-at-Arms and Historian Paul Wendland said. “So, we always send that out to warn anybody that might have a problem with, you know, the sound of guns going off. A lot of our members were in the Iraq/Afghanistan arena, so we don’t want to cause any problems.”
Rene Valdez, Veterans Upward Bound program director, will be the keynote speaker on the Brownsville campus.
Refreshments will be provided. Students are encouraged to volunteer with the preparations on both campuses.
To contact the UTRGV’s Student Veterans of America, visit “SVA UTRGV” on Facebook.
