MIDN 3/C Justin B. Zemser (USNA '17)
MIDN 3/C Justin B. Zemser (USNA '17)
Justin was lost on May 12, 2015, as a result of an Amtrak derailment in north Philadelphia. He was on leave and headed home to Rockaway Beach, New York.
Justin was one of eight people who died when Train 188 came off the tracks in Philadelphia just before 9.30 pm on Tuesday. More than 200 other passengers were injured.
At the academy, where he was in his second year, Justin served as vice president of the Jewish Midshipmen Club, played wide receiver and long snapper on the sprint football team and was a member of the Semper Fi Society, a Marine Corps club.
His roommate, Brandon Teel, told CNN that Zemser was 'a phenomenal human being'.
For every MIDN 3/C Justin Zemser bracelet sold, $10 will be donated to a charity of his family’s choosing.
From Newsday:
A U.S. Naval Academy midshipman from Queens killed in Tuesday's Amtrak crash was recalled Friday as a gifted scholar and athlete whose family believed he could have become the nation's first Jewish president.
Hundreds of friends, relatives and fellow sailors remembered Justin Zemser, 20, as embodying the best qualities of the Navy -- he was selfless, smart and courageous.
"To have a life so full of richness and potential truncated at the age of 20 is truly unconscionable," the victim's uncle, Richard Zemser of Merrick, told mourners at Boulevard-Riverside-Hewlett Chapel in Hewlett.
"To know that Justin died the way he did and because a train was moving at an obnoxious and deadly speed is unconscionable," he said. "Justin's zest and love of life. . . the love of his Jewishness, the love of learning, the love of adventure, are all gone in one single, obscene action."
On leave from the academy, Zemser was headed home Tuesday night when the Manhattan-bound Northeast Regional came off the tracks in Philadelphia while traveling 106 mph. Zemser's funeral was the first to be held for the eight people killed in the derailment.
Raised in Far Rockaway, he was the valedictorian, student body president and captain of the football team at his high school, Channel View School for Research.
At the academy in Annapolis, Maryland, he was a standout member of the Navy sprint football team and vice president of the Jewish Midshipmen Club. He was working toward becoming a Navy SEAL -- one of the most elite units in the U.S. military.