CHICAGO — More than 50 years after Cpl. Donald Bollman was killed in the Vietnam War, the Norridge resident's name is now a permanent fixture in the Schiller Woods.
State officials gathered Tuesday to name the bridge, which straddles the Des Plaines River at the city's border with suburban Schiller Park, in Bollman's honor.
Bollman's family, including his brother Norman Bollman, joined officials to celebrate the commemoration.
The dedication "means so much to our family" because "after all these years we know now he will never be forgotten,” Norman Bollman said, according to an announcement from State Sen. John Mulroe (D-Chicago), who sponsored the resolution to name the bridge.
“I know that it will help my brothers and sister to finally have some closure even though he will always be a part of our lives," Bollman said.
Donald Bollman was deployed in South Vietnam when his company came under attack by a North Vietnamese battalion, officials said. He died on March 1, 1967.
He was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star and a V for Valor.
"Though he died 50 years ago, his memory and sacrifice will live on with this bridge,” Mulroe said in a statement.
