There’s a special display on view at Riverhead Town Hall for the next month.
The Medal of Honor posthumously awarded to PFC Garfield M. Langhorn in April 1970 will be exhibited in a glass case in the lobby outside the meeting room in Town Hall.
Also on display are the accompanying Medal of Honor certificate signed by President Richard Nixon, along with an Army uniform jacket, a folded U.S. flag, and some family photos.
The Medal of Honor was posthumously awarded to Langhorn for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty,” the certificate states.
Langhorn threw himself on a live grenade to save the lives of fellow soldiers who lay wounded after an enemy ambush in a Vietnamese jungle on Jan. 15, 1969. He was just 20 years old, not quite two years out of high school.
“Everyone should know what he did,” Council Member Ken Rothwell said this morning at Town Hall, where members of the Langhorn family and their friends gathered with town officials and local veterans for the display’s unveiling.
Rothwell, the Town Board liaison to the Veterans Advisory Committee thanked committee members Kim Judd, Tom Najdzion and Keri Najdzion, for coordinating with the family to put the exhibit together.
The medal is “one of the most tangible things that brings us closer to him,” Rothwell said.
Langhorn’s nephew, Garfield Reid, the son of Yvonne Reid, one of Langhorn’s three sisters, spoke on behalf of the family. He thanked the town for having the display and said his grandparents, Garfield Langhorn Sr. and Mary Langhorn, “would really appreciate this if they could see this today.”
Retired Air Force Senior Master Sergeant Kevin Carrick of Aquebogue observed at the conclusion of the brief ceremony in Town Hall that “The word hero is thrown around a lot.”
“There’s no greater act than the selfless act of giving your life for somebody else’s. In the heat of combat, you don’t have time to think about that,” said Carrick, who had multiple deployments to combat zones in the Middle East during his military career.
“That’s who you are. To make a move like that to save other lives, that says a lot about somebody and their honor and their soul,” Carrick said.
“He is a true hero.”
The display will be on view until Veterans Day, Rothwell said.
A bronze bust of Langhorn, erected outside the former Town Hall on Howell Avenue in 1993, will be moved to the new Town Hall on West Second Street, Rothwell announced today.
Langhorn’s family walked the grounds of Town Hall with Rothwell today to find a spot where they’d most like to see the monument relocated. They are going to think about it over the weekend and get back in touch with him next week, Rothwell said this afternoon. It could be placed inside Town Hall or outside, he said, indicating the town wants to accommodate the family’s wishes.
Today, as the second Friday in October, is PFC Garfield M. Langhorn Jr. Day in Riverhead. The Town Board established the day of recognition with the adoption of a resolution in 2022. The date coincides with the annual PFC Garfield M. Langhorn Essay Contest ceremony held at Pulaski Street School, the former Riverhead High School building, where Langhorn attended and from which he graduated in June 1967.
Langhorn is Riverhead’s only Medal of Honor recipient.
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