Upper St. Clair Veterans Day service honors local Marine
The 242nd anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Marine Corps coincided with the day-early Veterans Day observance in Upper St. Clair.
Nov. 10 turned out to be eminently appropriate, as a significant portion of the event was dedicated to honoring an Upper St. Clair resident whom fellow veteran Tony Accamando Jr. called “the ultimate Marine.”

Harry Funk / The Almanac
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Marine Corps veteran T.J. McGarvey holds his granddaughter, Lidia, during the 2016 Veterans Day ceremony at the Upper St. Clair Veterans’ Memorial.
Because of health considerations, T.J. McGarvey could not be present for the ceremony. In 2016, he was featured speaker and helped unveil the new statue at the Upper St. Clair Veterans Monument Park.
“Every once in a while, I have the opportunity to be with Marines who are going to be discharged from the Marine Corps for medical reasons,” Accamando, who served in the Army, said as one of this year’s speakers.
“They go through a weeklong reindoctrination, if you will, helping them to reintegrate into civilian society,” he continued. “What T.J. would always say to them is, ‘Look at your feet. Every one of you, look at your feet. Which way are they pointing?’ And I ask you to do the same. Of course, the answer is forward.”

Harry Funk / The Almanac
T.J. McGarvey is listed at the top of the plaque at the Upper St. Clair Veterans Park.
The same type of thinking led McGarvey and Navy veteran William Babcock to approach the Upper St. Clair commissioners about a dozen years ago with an idea for the township to honor those who served in all branches of the military.
“Upper St. Clair, chartered in 1788, had never had any kind of park to commemorate the sacrifices of our veterans,” Ched Mertz, a former commissioner and chief organizer of the Veterans Day observance, said, adding that McGarvey helped to tie the rebar for the concrete on which those in attendance were standing. “He led us as we embarked on the process of designing the park, raising the money and building it.”
McGarvey is a Vietnam War veteran, as are Accamando and the ceremony’s featured speaker, former state auditor general Jack Wagner.
“I went to Vietnam on the same ship as T.J. McGarvey,” Wagner said. “And he’s done so much. I know no Marine – I’ve known no veteran – who has done more.”
He also served as president of the Pittsburgh-Allegheny County Vietnam Veterans Monument Committee, spearheading efforts that led to the construction of the monument on the North Shore bank of the Ohio River. A poem he wrote, “Welcome Home,” is inscribed on one of its walls.

Harry Funk / The Almanac
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Former state auditor general Jack Wagner, a Marine Corps veteran and Indiana University of Pennsylvania graduate, speaks during the observance.
McGarvey entered the Marine Corps in 1966 and served in Vietnam from March 1967 through April 1968. He fought with the 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division.
During his time in Vietnam, his battalion earned the nickname “The Walking Dead” for the casualties they suffered, which were among the highest in Marine Corps history. Wounded in April 1967, he refused the Purple Heart so as not to upset his mother, according to the story he told in his interview for the Veterans Voices of Pittsburgh project.
“On behalf of him, I would say to you: Thinking of him and the veterans we honor today, look forward and not backward,” Accamando told those attending the observance, “and be proud of T.J. McGarvey and this great country of ours.”