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Colliers bridge to be dedicated to veteran

Cpl. Mark D. Cool

COLLIERS — Marine Cpl. Mark Cool was 19 when he was injured in the Battle of Khe Sanh in Vietnam on Feb. 27, 1968, and died three days later in Okinawa, Japan.

Now, almost 40 years later, the Colliers Way Bridge, near where Cool grew up and lived most of his life before entering the Marines, will be renamed the Cpl. Mark D. Cool Bridge in his honor.

The re-dedication ceremony will be held at 6 p.m. Friday at the Brooke-Hancock Veterans Memorial Park in South Weirton, adjacent to the state Route 2-U.S. Route 22 interchange. In the event of inclement weather, the event will be held at the Weirton Veterans of Foreign Wars located at 3534 Main St.

What his surviving family, including his brother, Scott, and his 91-year-old mother, Arlene, want most of all is for those who knew Mark to attend the re-dedication. The family has relocated to New Manchester since Mark’s death, and said they expect to see many friends at the ceremony, but hope that more will hear about the event and come to honor Mark’s life and death.

“He sacrificed his life for the rest of the world and for those who didn’t have a lot,” Arlene Cool said. “I’m proud and surprised (about the renaming).”

Mark Cool was a 1966 Follansbee High School graduate and went straight into the Marines, something he had always wanted to do.

“I could have gone and gotten his diploma from Brooke High School after he died, but … ,” Arlene Cool said.

Mark Cool’s older brother was already in the corps, and a younger one would follow. Mark Cool served as a mortarman in the H&S Co., 1st Battalion, 26th Marines, 3rd Marine Division.

“I had three boys in the Marines,” Arlene Cool said. “John was deployed at the same time Mark was killed.”

One of those who will be attending the ceremony will be state Del. Pat McGeehan, R-Hancock, who was the primary sponsor of House Concurrent Resolution 96, which renamed the bridge. McGeehan said an interested party — not the family — sent him information about Mark Cool in 2015, and he had been working to see the bridge renamed since.

“He was in the Battle of Khe Sanh, which was one of the most brutal battles (of Vietnam),” McGeehan said. “When I was in the Air Force Academy, I did a research paper my senior year on Khe Sanh. I received information on Cpl. Cool, and I started researching his life.”

McGeehan said the re-dedication coming the Friday before Memorial Day was happy serendipity — it was simply a case of the right things coming together at the right time.

“I didn’t want to tell (the family) before the bill was passed, because I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up,” McGeehan said.

McGeehan will drive directly up to Weirton Friday evening from Charleston — it is important to him to see a Vietnam veteran properly remembered.

“The guys from Vietnam and Korea get overlooked, and the guys who went to Vietnam weren’t treated very well in their day,” McGeehan said. “I want to make sure that we remember and honor our Vietnam and Korean veterans.”

“We are very honored, proud and grateful,” Scott Cool said.

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