A small, Westmoreland County coal patch town paid tribute to five native sons killed during World War II by naming most of its seven streets after them.

"It hit the town hard when we lost the boys," said Ross Saunders, 84, who has lived in the village of Bovard, just east of Greensburg, all his life and knew the five soldiers.

A Fayette County teen spearheaded a drive to build a memorial to the county's only Vietnam veteran still listed as missing in action, and a Bell Township man turned surplus money from the township historical society's 150th birthday party into a memorial to its 500 veterans.

In Allegheny County, the Shaler Area School District serves a special breakfast to hundreds of veterans each year.

These efforts, often undertaken quietly by ordinary people, are part of a growing national trend to honor veterans.

Many people are involved in these types of projects "because it's the right thing to do," said Joe March, spokesman for the American Legion.

"These are the kind of projects you don't hear about because the people doing them don't usually talk about it," said Ronald Conley, director of Allegheny County's Department of Veterans Services.

The cost of staging Veterans Day parades such as the one in Pittsburgh is more than $10,000 and climbing, said Anthony Filardi, adjutant of the Federation of War Veterans Societies of Allegheny County.

With money growing tighter or drying up, Filardi said parades could be numbered. There will be a parade this year, but he's not making promises about next year.

"I don't want to paint a lot of doom and gloom. ... That remains to be seen," he said. "We'll see how we end up in the expense column."

The village of Bovard, built in 1910 by Keystone Coal & Coke Co., was a close-knit community of Italian, Polish, Slavic and Russian descendants when World War II called many of its youngest residents to battles in Guadalcanal, Normandy or Burma, Saunders said.

It's where Robert E. Price Jr. worked in the company store and Walter Burak honed his skill as a star high school football player.

Burak, a Marine Corps corporal, was killed Oct. 9, 1942, when he was hit with Japanese machine gun fire during a battle that came to be called "Bloody Ridge."

"You talk about a real hero, Walter was one," said Greensburg Fire Chief John Edward Hutchinson, who went to high school with Burak.

Burak was the first Bovard native to be killed, and then Price, said Saunders, who wanted to enlist after their deaths but was too young.

"I wanted to go get those SOBs for what they did to us," Saunders said. He did eventually join the Army and served during the war. He served in the National Guard in Germany during the Korean Conflict.

Army Pvt. Robert E. Price Jr. died in New Guinea on Dec. 18, 1942, and was buried there. He was awarded the Purple Heart after being shot in the stomach.

Conditions in the jungle were difficult, said his sister, Dorothea Nenoher, 87, of Latrobe. In addition to the Japanese, soldiers fought leeches and malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Jungle rot and fungus were rampant.

Price wrote to his older brother, Harold, that "the combat boots rotted off your feet in two weeks," she said.

Price, who joined the Army when he was 26, initially went in as a paratrooper.

"When they found out how old he was they put him in the infantry," Nenoher said. "He never got home."

The other Bovard veterans: Army Pvt. Kasmir Dziedzickie, killed in the Battle of the Bulge, 1942; Army Pfc. Mario Prisani, killed in the Battle of Brest, 1944; and Army Pfc. John I. Thomas, killed in 1944 during fighting along the Burma Road.

Both "John Street" and "Thomas Street" were in use in Hempfield, so there is no such honor for John Thomas, said fire Chief Greg Saunders, son of Ross Saunders.

The streets were renamed as part of an effort to eliminate duplicate street names in the township. Initially streets were given random names, and the people of the village petitioned to have them changed to honor their war dead.

In Fayette County, Scott Brownfield spearheaded an effort to erect a war memorial for Army Spc. Samuel D. Shimek, who remains missing in action.

"It meant a great deal to me. It's hard to explain. ... I can't put it into words," said Brownfield, 17. He collected about $4,000 for the project by holding dances, bake sales and other fundraisers.

Shimek's unit came under fire Dec. 9, 1968, in Binh Long Province in South Vietnam. He was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade or a hand grenade, which caused the ammunition rounds he was carrying to explode.

As the battle grew more intense and the rest of his unit withdrew, his body was left behind.

Shaler Area school officials mailed more than 500 invitations to veterans in the North Hills for the district's annual veterans breakfast, held last week. About 400 people attended last year's breakfast.

"It's year 10. It keeps going," said Jeannine Vittorino, eighth grade reading teacher who chairs the event.

The district allocates about $2,000 to cover the cost, she said.

"We wanted to show the kids how important it is to honor our veterans," said school board President James Giel.

Stephen Nelson, 61, of Bell thought the Westmoreland County community needed a memorial to honor its veterans, so he headed the effort to use surplus party money to build one.

"You listen over the years to the veterans and what they went through. ... I just thought they needed to be recognized," said Nelson, 61, a marketing representative with T.W. Phillips Gas & Oil Co.

The township's other memorial — a wooden tribute to World War II vets -- was torn down when the wood started to rot, said Delores Colledge, who along with her husband, Robert, helped research the township's 525 veterans for the new memorial.

Money left over from the Bell Township Historical Society's 150th birthday celebration last year was bolstered with fundraisers. About $3,500 was raised for the memorial.

Soldiers from Bell fought in Guadalcanal, New Guinea and Europe during World War II. Some of the four or five women listed on the memorial served in Korea, Nelson said.

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