Origins of Michael Valente Day

At a City Council meeting in May 2008, Long Beach resident Al Symons requested that the council designate Sept. 29 as Michael Valente Day.

“I am not a veteran, I have not served in any war … but where we are as a nation, we’re fortunate to find Americans of this character, of this caliber, of this strength,” Symons told the council.

Four months later, nearly 90 years to the day after World War I veteran Valente rescued his regiment from disaster in France, the council voted unanimously to designate Sept. 29 as a day in his honor.

“In the City of Long Beach, we want every September 29 to be a day for people to reflect and honor the life and accomplishments of Michael Valente,” said City Manager Charles Theofan. “… This is the very least we can do to honor him.” 

Valente, who died in 1976, is Long Beach’s lone recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor — the highest award for valor given to a member of the U.S. armed forces for actions against an enemy force
—  which the infantryman, then a private, earned for heroic acts on Sept. 29, 1918. By 2008, just 3,446 such medals had been awarded since its inception in 1861.

Valente’s courageous acts came when his regiment, Company D of the 107th Infantry, was suffering heavy casualties during operations against German forces at the Hindenburg line near Ronssoy, France. Alongside a fellow soldier, Valente rushed forward through intense machine gun fire directly on an enemy nest, killing two gunners and capturing five enemy soldiers. Discovering another machine gun nest nearby that rained heavy fire on American forces, Valente and his companion charged it, killed the gunner, jumped into the enemy trench, killed two more soldiers and captured 21 others.

President Herbert Hoover decorated Valente, then a retired sergeant, with the medal in Washington on Sept. 27, 1929. “It’s the proudest moment of my life,” Valente said, according to a New York Times account dated the day after.  

After the council designated the day, Frank Cuneo said that he believed his grandfather’s legacy was never properly passed down, and he was satisfied that a Long Beach resident like Symons spearheaded an effort to create a day honoring him. In March 2011, Nassau County renamed the Long Beach Bridge to the Michael Valente Memorial Bridge. Valente’s name also graces senior apartments near City Hall and a Sons of Italy lodge.

Valente emigrated from Italy to Ogdensburg, N.Y., in 1915, and joined the New York Guard. In May of 1918, he was deployed to France to fight on the front lines. Later he married Margareta Marchello and the couple settled in Long Beach around 1919, eventually buying a home on West Walnut Street where they raised three children. Valente became a contractor and real estate agent who built houses in Long Beach, but eventually gave up the business to work in City Hall as the city marshal.

Valente’s daughter, Lido Beach resident Josephine Cuneo, said that her father never spoke about the Medal of Honor. “Unless other people told us about the medal, we would never have known,” she said.