GUILDERLAND — Two events in town this week will honor three fallen soldiers who once lived in Guilderland.

The first is a road-naming ceremony Thursday at 3 p.m. at Town Hall to honor Specialist Rafael A. Nieves Jr., killed in action in Afghanistan on July 10, 2011. The section of East Lydius Street where his father still lives will be named after Nieves, who was 22 when the tank he was manning in Paktika Province came under enemy fire and he was shot in the chest as he returned fire.

Nieves, who had been scheduled to return home just two weeks later, left behind a wife, a young daughter, and an infant son.

A member of Nieves’s unit wrote to Nieves’s father, in a message read at a memorial service at McKownville United Methodist Church in July 2011, “Your son was a hero. He died saving the lives of everyone in our convoy, including mine.” Private First Class Eric Peterson described Nieves as “the bravest man I have ever known,” saying that he stayed “calm and collected” as the unit went through “hell on earth.”

The second event is a three-day Run for the Fallen that will cross over 140 miles of New York State, from Syracuse to Albany, passing through Guilderland on Sunday at noontime. At exactly 12:42 p.m., at the intersection of Foundry Road and Western Avenue, on the south side of Route 20, runners will pause to read the biographies of two other local members of the United States Army killed in action: Major General Harold J. Greene, who died Aug. 5, 2014, and Lieutenant Colonel Todd J. Clark, who died June 8, 2013. Both officers were killed in insider attacks in Afghanistan.

Greene’s father, Harold F. Greene, still lives in Guilderland, as do Clark’s parents, Jack and Kathleen, and Clark’s brother, Kyle.

For Nieves’s father, Rafael A. Nieves Sr., five years have not softened the loss of his son. “It’s just like it happened yesterday,” he told The Enterprise.

He said that, to mark the fifth year, he had wanted to do something big, but he didn’t know what. “And then this happened. I’m speechless, but at the the same time I have a lot of emotions in my heart.”

He is honored and very thankful, Nieves said, for what the town is doing for his son.

This past Memorial Day was tough, Nieves said. “A lot of his friends and family were posting pictures on Facebook. It was very touching, just like he was here.”

The road to be renamed for Nieves is East Lydius Street, between Siver and East Old State roads. A street sign bearing his name will be placed at either end of that section. The official name of the road will be unchanged.

At the ceremony on Thursday, town Supervisor Peter Barber will read a proclamation about the renaming of part of East Lydius Street after Nieves. A plaque with Nieves’s name on it that will hang in the Altamont Veterans of Foreign Wars will be shown. And a 3-by-5-foot Honor and Remember flag, with Nieves’s name and rank embroidered on it — sponsored by the American Legion Post 977 — will be presented to Nieves’s father, as will a smaller replica of a street sign. At the same time, actual street signs, bearing Nieves’s names and in place at Lydius Street, will be unveiled.

Honor and Remember

The run, said Laura Sutton — public relations manager for Honor and Remember, the not-for-profit group that is organizing the event — honors members of the military killed in the “war on terror,” beginning with the bombing of the Navy ship the U.S.S. Cole in 2000 and continuing through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The course spans “140-plus miles and 338 heroes” from throughout New York State, Sutton said.

Runners, who have already been chosen, have shown that they are able to run an eight-minute mile. They include a core group of 18 runners, who are all active or former military, at least four of whom will be on the road at all times, Sutton said.

Runners will stop at each “hero marker” placed by organizers at one-mile intervals along the route — to greet the Gold Star families, read aloud a bio of each fallen service member to be honored at that marker, and present the bio and attached small Honor and Remember flag to family members.

They will also present a rose — yellow, to signify the Gold Star, Sutton said — to family members, before beginning to run again.

Specialist Nieves will be honored at the run’s final marker, at the Tri-County Council Vietnam Era Veterans Memorial in Albany’s Lafayette Park, at 2:18 p.m.

The purpose of the event, Sutton said, is to “bring the community out to honor the fallen heroes across the state.”

Steve Oliver, who is the president of the American Legion, Post 977, said several town officials will be at the intersection of Foundry Road and Western Avenue “15 or 20 minutes early,” to present a full-size Honor and Remember flag to the families of Major General Harold Greene and Lieutenant Colonel Todd Clark. Greene’s flag has been sponsored by the Sons of the American Legion, Post 977, and Clark’s by the American Legion Riders, Post 977; each is embroidered with the man’s respective name and rank.

Greene attended Farnsworth Middle School and Guilderland High School. A 55-year-old logistics and acquisitions expert, he was briefing other senior officials on plans to upgrade the water system at an Afghan military academy — as part of an effort to make the Afghan military better able to function after the United States left, his father told The Enterprise — when he was killed and at least 15 others were wounded, all shot by the same Afghan soldier.

Clark, 44, was a highly decorated officer on his fifth combat tour when he and two others were shot and killed by an Afghan soldier they had been training. His funeral was held at St. Madeleine-Sophie, the same Guilderland church where Clark had been married.  

Oliver told The Enterprise that it would be wonderful to have residents not just at the mile markers but lining the south side of Western Avenue throughout the length of the town to cheer runners on and show their support for veterans.