Trained as medic, the senior Melnick saw further action in the European theatre and ultimately earned burial at Arlington National Cemetery.
He then attended Roanoke College briefly (because his elder brother Norbert Waring Melnick Jr. had studied there before receiving an appointment at the U.S.
He remained in Charlottesville during the next three winters, studying at the law school during the Commonwealth's Massive Resistance crisis, and receiving his legal degree in 1961.
[7] Melnick's major accomplishment as a legislator was establishment of the Virginia Crime Victims Compensation Fund, based on models in England, New Zealand and several other states.
It was funded primarily by federal grants, and later financed forensic laboratory tests of sexual assault evidence kits as well as responses to mass shootings.
[10] The library also has numerous records and photographs of his father, Norbert Melnick, and nominated him for an entry in the Dictionary of Virginia Biography.