FROM THIS WEEK’S FREEMAN’S
JOURNAL, HOMETOWN ONEONTA
Cooperstown’s Frank Capozza
Deploys With ‘Team Rubicon’
When Disaster Strikes, United Veterans Respond
By JIM KEVLIN
COOPERSTOWN – On one of his Team Rubicon “deployments,” Frank Capozza and his team were “mucking out” a house destroyed by flooding and discovered the homeowner’s military uniforms hanging neatly – but now mud-covered – in a closet.
Only three uniforms could be saved.
“We brought them out and had them dry cleaned,” said Capozza. They sought out the man, a Korean War veteran, in his temporary quarters and presented them to him.
“He cried. And we cried,” said the former Cooperstown village trustee and Bassett manager who owned Cooperstown Event Rentals before retiring.
An Army veteran, Capozza is also a veteran of more than a half-dozen Team Rubicon deployments, returning the first week of this month from Mexico Beach, still recovering from Hurricane Michael, which hit the Florida Panhandle in September. He spent a week there in early December, too.