Marine Corps League Detachment 1317 in Gloucester and the Middlesex County Museum and Historical Society will hold a special event in honor of Lt. Gen. Lewis Burwell “Chesty” Puller at 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 25, at the museum in Saluda.
Born in West Point in 1898, Puller is the most decorated Marine in American history. In 1955, he retired to the childhood home of his wife, Virginia, in Saluda.
The ceremony will be a rededication of the “New Puller Park.” Among the speakers will be Puller’s youngest daughter, Martha Downs, and her husband, Brigadier Gen. Michael P. Downs (USMC-ret.). Also participating in the program will be three Marine colonels, including the Commanding Officer of Regiment of Marine Corps Security Forces, Yorktown. Meriwether Ball, a distant cousin of Puller and editor of Corps Stories, will also be attending, along with a number of Marines from Yorktown. The Rev. Stuart C. Wood, rector at Christ Episcopal Church in Saluda, will perform the benediction.
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