MARS — Veterans Day Wednesday was an important day in the borough for two reasons.

First, veterans from Mars VFW Post 7505 distributed 100 green light bulbs to businesses and residents as part of Walmart’s Green Light program, a veterans initiative.

The program encourages home and business owners to put a green light bulb in an exterior socket on their homes or buildings to honor veterans. While it is placed on Veterans Day, the light continues to be used to indicate continued support for veterans.

Mars Mayor Gregg Hartung said Mars is the only community in Western Pennsylvania to participate in the nationwide program.

A uniformed VFW commander, Wayne Perry, who also is the VFW district commander, and several of his VFW comrades passed out the green bulbs Wednesday afternoon.

“Mars has got big arms for its veterans,” said Perry, who served in the Navy in Vietnam and in the Dominican Republic.

The second event on Wednesday was in downtown Mars where residents celebrated the bell from the Navy ship, USS Mars, that is in the town square, as well as the man who helped to have it shipped to Mars.

New Kensington resident Art Sweetland was a third class storekeeper on the USS Mars, which was a Navy combat store ship commissioned in December 1963 and decommissioned in 1993.

Sweetland recalled that the USS Mars was the first Navy vessel to include a computer.

“It would probably take up all of your living rooms,” Sweetland told the crowd of 25.

He recalled that in 2005, a fellow crew member called him to say the Mars had been decommissioned, and that he wanted help saving the ship’s large bell.

Sweetland brought a photograph of the ship to a Mars Borough Council meeting to enlist help in getting the bell and having it placed in the town square.

“I went out on a limb that day, and thank God no one sawed it off,” Sweetland said of the council meeting.

The reaction was quite the opposite, Sweetland said. Council members and the late Mayor Dick Settlemire backed the bell project.

“In 2006, we got the bell,” Sweetland said, “and in 2008, the USS Mars crew had a reunion (in the borough).”

Sweetland recalled that first reunion in Mars.

“We had 85 Martians in town, and the borough opened their hearts to us,” Sweetland said.

Hartung on Wednesday surprised Sweetland by proclaiming it as Art Sweetland Day in Mars.

“We pledge to cherish this bell from the ship so that you and those who served on the USS Mars are not forgotten,” the proclamation reads in part.

Sweetland, who was there with his wife, Nancy, was delighted with Hartung’s proclamation.

“I didn’t expect this,” he said.

Information on the USS Mars is available at www.ussmars.com, and information on the green light bulb program is at www.greenlightavet.com.