Memorial

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Pvt Kenneth J. Burdick attended Danbury Trade School and was employed by the Eastern Aircraft Company in Norwalk.

He enlisted on 8 March 1944 at Fort Devens, Massachusetts and was sent overseas in September 1944.

He joined his unit on 16 September 1944 from a replacement depot.

A Tribute (By a Friend): He was a man of peace, content with little pleasures, the simple things of life. Today he is dead. Far away, mid mud and cold he died a Connecticut boy, Kenneth Burdick, born and bred in this pleasant, peaceful land. He used to like to hunt and fish but he left his rod and gun and went away where, as he wryly said, in a letter just a few days ago, "You don't have to pay $3.85 over here to go hunting." You could see him smile as he wrote this for he had that delightful sense of humor that is typical of the small towns and the country. He never thought of himself as a hero going off to war yet when the test came he, like thousands of his fellow, faced the shells of a hard and warlike enemy and died that we and others might hold up our heads as free people. And now in a little Connecticut home one of the two blue stars proudly displayed in the window must be replaced by a gold one. Now a wife has only a few precious letters the last just a few words on a little scrap of paper sent just four days before he was killed. We who knew him know that he died bravely his last conscious thought of those he left just a few short weeks ago. What can the rest of us do about it? Or what can we say? That perhaps is the real tragedy we can do so little to pay our great debt we who have not been directly touched by the sacrifice of those dear to us. We know in our hearts what we can do. We have been told. Let us do it. For none of us now can sit with easy conscience, safe in the shelter of our homes, a safety so dealy bought for us by a blood of good and brave young men, unless we pay our debt to the limit of our ability.