Major Todd Berrios and his wife Mari are the recipients of this year’s American Legion Post 469 Wounded Warrior Week program.
By NANETTE LoBIONDO GALLOWAY
LONGPORT – American Legion Post 469 has announced the recipient of its 10th annual Wounded Warrior Week program is U.S. Army Maj. Todd Berrios and his wife Maricela (Meri) of Crestview, Florida. A Special Forces Officer, Todd Berrios was wounded in action Feb. 8, 2020, while serving in Afghanistan. He suffered multiple gunshot wounds and is currently recovering from his injuries.
They will arrive in Longport Sept. 22 for a weeklong all-expense-paid vacation courtesy of Post members and the community. Todd and Meri Berrios will be staying at the beach-block home of Commissioner Jim Leeds, and enjoy dinners, shows, boating excursions and various other activities donated by area businesses. The week culminates with a military-style ceremony and reception attended by supporters and federal, state, county, and local dignitaries.
Although the Berrios’s have three adult children – Alicia, 25, Luis, 22, and Alexander, 20, they have decided to leave their children “home alone” and escape to the Jersey Shore for a much-needed vacation. Maj. Berrios and Mari are both “Army Brats,” who met during their senior year of high school while their fathers were stationed in Germany. They were married on Dec. 11, 1993.
Berrios began his military career in 1992 in the U.S. Marine Corps. During his seven years as a Marine, he served a tour in Iwakuni, Japan. He left the Marine Corps in 1999 to join the U.S. Army and enter the Special Forces Qualification Course, graduating in 2003 as a Weapons Sergeant. He was later deployed to Suriname, Afghanistan, and Columbia.
Berrios pursued a bachelor’s degree at Troy University and was accepted into Officer Candidate School. In 2009, he was commissioned as an engineer stationed in Hohenfels, Germany. He then applied and was accepted to re-enter the Special Forces community as an officer. Again, he tackled rigorous challenges and achieved his goal to become a Special Forces Officer in June 2015.
He has many awards and decorations, including two Bronze Star medals and a Purple Heart medal.
Downbeach residents are encouraged to participate in a “surprise” motorcade parade through the Downbeach area by lining streets along the parade route with American flags and homemade posters and signs, waving and cheering on these special guests as they pass by.
The motorcade will be led by American Legion Riders on their Harley motorcycles, followed by the Berrios’s in a convertible white stretch limousine, and police and fire apparatus from all three Downbeach communities taking up the rear. The motorcade will leave Ventnor Plaza shopping center at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 22 and travel along Dorset Avenue, then south on Atlantic Avenue through Ventnor, Margate and Longport.
“Those along the parade route will only have a moment to wave to our Wounded Warrior couple as they go by, but the images of you being there will remain with Todd and Mari for a lifetime,” Post Commander Larry Pacentrilli said.
The Wounded Warrior Week program was started in 2012 when Legionnaire Donal Sheahan, after years of visiting Walter Reed Hospital near Washington, D.C. to spend a day visiting with soldiers wounded in action in Iraq and Afghanistan, got the idea to bring a wounded warrior family to the Jersey shore for a complimentary weeklong vacation. Post members work with various branches of military service to identify a worthy recipient each year.
Support for the Wounded Warrior Week project can be sent to American Legion Post 469, PO Box 441, Longport, NJ 08403.
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