PEEKSKILL – Some 200 people, veterans and supporters, rallied at Peekskill’s Riverfront Green Park in support of the McCain-Palin ticket as well as for Republican Kieran Lalor, who is challenging Democratic incumbent Congressman John Hall in next month’s election.

The groups New York Vets for McCain and Iraq Vets for Congress rallied on Saturday and heard speeches from Senator William Larkin, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, and rally organizer Ret. Gen. Patrick Garvey, Marine Corps. Reserves, among others.

Lalor is former Marine who served in the Iraqi war.

“We need to take a lesson from the grand army of the republic and march in their wake and be unified behind a fellow veteran and champion John McCain,” said Garvey. McCain has shown “physical and moral courage and but, I think he has been insightful in a lot of the key issues that have bedeviled this administration and the Congress and while there is some blame to be laid at the door of the Bush Administration for some of this stuff, there is no doubt in my mind that the campaign in Iraq was exactly what was needed and appropriate,” Garvey said.

Garvey said it was fitting to conduct the rally across the street from the historic Lincoln Depot, where Abraham Lincoln stopped in February 1861 on the way to his inauguration.