Those who served gather for dinner, entertainment at Delmont restaurant

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Those who served gather for dinner, entertainment at Delmont restaurant

Jeff Himler | Thursday, November 11, 2021 9:57 p.m.

Jeff Himler | Tribune-Review

From left: Air Force veteran Robert Hankey of McKeesport chats with Army veterans Donald Rauscher of Mt. Pleasant Township and Rich Marshall of Salem Township during an Honoring Our Veterans dinner on Veterans Day, Thursday, Nov. 11, 2021, at The Lamplighter Restaurant in Delmont. Rauscher and Marshall are members of the Armbrust Veterans Association, an honor guard that participates in military funeral services.

About 200 veterans and their guests enjoyed a meal and music during an Honoring Our Veterans dinner on Veterans Day at The Lamplighter Restaurant in Delmont.

It was the 23rd such dinner organized by Penn Township resident Marianne Caruso since March 2017, when about 70 attended.

The diners were served a menu featuring wiener schnitzel and were entertained by the Magic Moments classic rock, pop and doo-wop cover band.

Caruso, whose father and husband saw military service, started her outreach by setting up gatherings of veterans at Weatherwood Manor, an assisted-living facility in Greensburg where her mother had stayed.

She’s also taken veterans on outings and driven them in parades in her 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible.

The dinners, she said, are not part of any fundraising effort but simply are meant to honor veterans for their service.

“Our veterans are so deserving of it,” she writes. “Without them, we wouldn’t be the freedom-loving United States of America.”

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