GUILDERLAND — A bill to designate a portion of Route 146 as the Lt. Col. Todd J. Clark Memorial Highway passed the State Senate this month, nearly two years after the officer was killed in the line of duty.

“He is an American hero,” said Senator George Amedore, who worked on the bill.

Clark died of injuries suffered from small-arms fire in Afghanistan on June 8, 2013, at the age of 44, when a man wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Force members.

Clark, a married father of two, was born and raised in Guilderland, and his parents, Raymond J. Clark, a retired Army colonel, and Kathleen Murphy Clark, still live here.

“It would mean so much,” said Raymond Clark, if the highway were named after his son.

Clark was commissioned into the Army in 1995, and deployed to Bosnia in 1999; Kuwait in 2003; Iraq in 2003, 2006, and 2009; and Afghanistan in 2010 and 2013.

“Anyone who puts on the uniform, goes through the training, and goes to the front line is a hero,” said Amedore. The bill was one of the first he worked on after entering the State Senate in January.

“A lot of our service men and women do not get the credit they deserve,” he said.

The stretch of Route 146 that would be dedicated to Clark would be from the intersection with Route 20 to just past St. Madeleine Sophie Church, where he was married and where his funeral was held.

“It would be such a fitting tribute,” Raymond Clark told The Enterprise this week.

“This honors not only him, but his parents, wife, and children,” said Amedore.

Raymond Clark said it went beyond honoring family.

“It’s more a tribute to this area and to anyone here who serves,” he said. “They, like my son, are at the forefront of trying to keep this country great.”

The bill passed unanimously in the Senate, and now needs to be passed by the State Assembly and be signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo.

“It’s a great thing we can to do memorialize him,” said Amedore.

“It’s bittersweet,” concluded Raymond Clark.