A son of Paterson who fell in service to the nation will be added to the Memorial Wall at the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial and Museum in Holmdel this coming Sunday, April 27 at 11 a.m.
Private First-Class Allan H. Katz will be the 1,565th name inscribed on the Memorial Wall which encircles the outdoor garden behind the museum. The wall contains the names of every New Jerseyan who made the ultimate sacrifice in the Vietnam conflict.
The wall contains 366 eight-foot-high black granite panels – one panel for each day of the year – plus one day to cover leap years. The names of the fallen are commemorated on the panel of the date they died.
The ceremony for Katz will take place in front of the February 26 panel, the day in 1967 when Katz fell while serving in the Mekong Delta. At the time, he was serving with the 25th Infantry Division.
Among those expected to attend the ceremony are Congressional Representative Nellie Pou (D-NJ9) and Assemblywoman Dr. Margie Donlan of the 11th District, members of the Katz family, dignitaries from Paterson as well as a contingent of veterans from that city.
Also expected to participate in the ceremony are Rabbi Melinda Panken from Manalapan and two color guard teams – one from the Secaucus Police Department and the other the U.S. Navy Sea Cadets from Lakewood.
Members of the general public are invited.
“This will be a very historic and memorable ceremony,” said Amy Osborn, executive director of the Museum and Memorial. “We scheduled it on Sunday to ensure as many of our Jewish veterans as possible could attend.”
When Katz’s death was reported in 1967, his home of record was listed as Santa Monica, California, which is where his family had moved not long before Katz entered military service. Katz is buried in Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California.
However, Katz had been born in the Garden State in 1947 and was raised in Paterson, having attended Eastside High School and later Farleigh Dickinson University. These facts were brought to Osborn’s attention by Paterson’s Vietnam veterans.
“I received a call from Tony Vancheri in late 2024 about adding Allan Katz’s name to the Memorial Wall of Heroes,” explained Osborn. “I asked Tony for documentation, and it turned out Allan Katz was indeed born and raised in Paterson.”
Two years ago, the name of James Gosselin from Pleasantville was added to the Memorial Wall when it was realized he had been mistakenly identified as being from Pleasantville, Pennsylvania rather than the New Jersey town in Atlantic County. Gosselin was a U.S. Navy hospital corpsman killed during the Battle of Hue City in 1968.
