Russell Brown, a good friend of Robert Federowski, sent the library the following message about the names on the monument dedicated to the men from Lowell who died in Vietnam:
I think you have a mistake on this list. I'm pretty sure Robert and Richard Federowski are the same person. I talked to Robert's brothers, and they said somehow their brother's name was mistakenly printed as Richard after he died but was later printed as Robert, which is correct. I grew up in Lowell and knew of only one family named Federowski, which were friends of mine.
Town Historian Richard Schmal agrees that a mistake was made on the monument and that for whatever reason, Robert's name was originally engraved as Richard. The best remedy anyone could think of at the time was to add the correct name to the monument.