Vietnam Veterans Day

[JMA]

Dedication of the Michigan Vietnam Monument

Following are Peter C. Lemon's remarks at the dedication of the Michigan Vietnam Monument on Veteran's Day, November 11, 2001.

On behalf of my unit, E Company (RECON) , 2nd of the 8th, First Calvary Division, and Casey Waller, Nathan Mann, and Brent Street, the three comrades that I lost during the battle for which I received the Medal of Honor, I am humbled to be here today. Thank you very much for having me.

Since the birth of our nation, 1776, not a single generation of Americans have been spared the responsibility of defending freedom in the name of liberty. We have many of those veterans here today. Since it is Armistice Day–a day of peace–what we now call Veterans Day, I think we should acknowledge all veterans. We have many with us today. Veterans would you please stand so we can acknowledge your service to our country in the name of freedom. [applause]

Folks, take a look around you. It has to make you very proud.

Now if you could, in spirit, we have two and a half million service men and women in over 80 nations in this world representing us and protecting our freedoms. We have to be concerned with their welfare, but also very concerned with those that are serving in Afghanistan. So in spirit, let's give them a round of applause. Believe me, they will hear us across this world. [applause]

In 1958, the first small American unit visited the land known as Vietnam. It wasn't until about 1975 that the last troops assisted the Vietnamese evacuation process. Over 9 million people served in Vietnam, and more than 58,000 lost their lives or are missing in action. Of the 402,000 who served from Michigan, 2,654 died or missing in action. Many died after the war of wounds; or the effects of Agent Orange; or PTSD. Some suffer to this day. Most have gone on to be productive citizens. Today we honor Michigan’s Vietnam veterans by celebrating their patriotism and their sacrifice.

It's always been popular throughout our nation's short history to take wars and somehow, for prosperity sake, condense them down into some catchy title or memorable synopsis. World War I was known as, "The War to End all Wars." It wasn't. Twenty-three years after the doughboys returned home, a new generation of Americans were confronted by the likes of Normandy, Guadalcanel, and Hiroshima. The veterans of that war had become known as the "Greatest Generation," which is a fitting tribute to the men and women who may well have saved our world.

Then it was the "Forgotten War." The memories of Inchong and the Chos I n Reservoir, where in Korea thousands lost their lives. Their borders, we protect to this day.

Vietnam was not a popular war, and we as a nation have struggled for twenty-five years to define Vietnam. I've heard it stated: "the war we lost." Have you heard that? Others have hailed it: "the wasted effort." Have you heard that? But no one -- no one -- has put the Vietnam War into context that really defines this chapter in our nation's history. Today we have the opportunity to understand and embrace that responsibility. If we do it now, then all those we memorialize here today have not died or served in vain.

I truly believe that the Vietnam experience has shaped our nation and the world more than most wars in our nation's history. Let me put it into perspective. The experience has forged the decisions of nine presidents -- nine. Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy sent the first troops to Vietnam. President Johnson knew that in his heart he could not succeed, as he had intended in Vietnam, but that provided him motivation. It provided him the motivation to succeed here at home, with regard to minority equal rights. First Amendment Rights were used to protest the Vietnam War, but these rights were also used by the media to film the war so that it could be brought into millions of homes and watched during dinner. The Federal Elections Commission was developed out of the Watergate Scandal, to make politicians accountable to us, the citizens of this great country. The pro-Vietnam, California Governor, now President Reagan, came to our nation as though he was in the last period of a football game, determined to rally our nation, to overcome the Cold War and the Soviet block, which we were able to do. President Bush, Sr., along with General Colin Powell, used the history of Vietnam to have a staggering defeat over Iraq. President Clinton sent Pete Peterson as an ambassador to Vietnam. The aftermath of the Vietnam War was the catalyst to dramatically improve Veterans benefits through the Veterans Administration, not only for those who served in Vietnam, but thank God, for all veterans. The current president, George Bush, must and will use the lessons of Vietnam in Afghanistan and fighting terrorism throughout the world.

Whether you are in the chambers of the United States Congress, the halls of the Pentagon, or listening to the news of the day, major decisions always use Vietnam as a reference point. We can't say what would have occurred if we wouldn't have gone into Vietnam. Nor can we say what would have occurred if we now occupied Vietnam. We can't speculate because that's not history. What is history is what I've just described. So how should we take this responsibility and encapsulate the Vietnam War with a historical defining phrase? We need to do it, and do it now.

So humbly, on your behalf, and I hope you allow me to do this, I would like to define it today. And I've chosen "The Defining War." To define means to mark, to identify, to discover, to find meaning. America's Defining War. Through Vietnam, we discovered ourselves. We've given meaning, an identity for which we stand as a nation. It defined us, either directly or indirectly. Either during the war or after the war in terms of strength, compassion, tolerance, patriotism, rights, perseverance, determination, sacrifice, and above all, freedom -- freedom throughout our land and the entire world.

Today, we are being tested with regard to how we define ourselves, and the price we are willing to pay for freedom. The Vietnam War was not our darkest moment. But it's been our nation's guiding light.

In Vietnam, we used to swap stories, if you can remember. We were on the decks of ships, in the bunkers and the chopper pads. We all told our stories and shared our dreams. Dreams of being farmers, teachers, some of us politicians -- not many of us. [laughter], construction workers, working in the factories. Dreams of having wives, babies, grandkids. The American dream of owning our own home or having that muscle car sitting in our driveway. Dreams of coming back to hunt and fish with our best friend. Those of us who came home alive -- at least we got to realize that portion of our dream. These men didn't.

When we shared our dreams back then, everyone supported each other. I believe, as we dedicate this memorial, it is our responsibility to those that didn't make it home to realize our dreams and our children's dreams for them: to pursue our profession, as they would have; to love our family, as they would have; to be a proud American, as they would have, knowing that their service not only contributed to the history of this great nation but defined it as well.

In the honor of these men, our country, yourselves as veterans and Vietnam veterans, you must walk proudly as Michigan's veterans and as veterans of the United States of America.

Now this is not in the program, but I want it to be. If you could picture yourself at the Chosen Reservoir, not only are you up against the enemy, but you're battling the elements of the cold. Those men had to snuggle next to one another to keep themselves warm. And in their honor, and in honor of all veterans, but especially those Vietnam veterans that are on the wall here today, I would like you to keep your neighbor warm by holding their hand right now. Everybody hold somebody's hand. So we're all united. Let's sing "God Bless America." [singing]

Source

[JMA]

Poem by Major Michael Davis O'Donnell, U.S. Army

(Major O'Donnell was listed as MIA while piloting a helicopter on a mission in Cambodia on 24 March 1970. His remains were recovered and interned at Arlington National Cemetery on 16 August 2001.)

If you are able,
save them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own.
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind

[Bill Moore]

(AP) Today, April 30th, marks the 35th Anniversary of the fall of Saigon, when communist North Vietnamese forces drove tanks through the former U.S.-backed capital of South Vietnam, smashing through the Presidential Palace gates. The fall of Saigon marked the official end of the Vietnam War and the decadelong U.S. campaign against communism in Southeast Asia. The conflict claimed some 58,000 American lives and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese.

The war left divisions that would take years to heal as many former South Vietnamese soldiers were sent to Communist re-education camps and hundreds of thousands of their relatives fled the country.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured...f-saigon/1781/

A very moving series of photos

[JMA]

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured...f-saigon/1781/

A very moving series of photos

Magnificent!

Thank you for posting that link... moving indeed.

The comment from one George Martin is worthy of insertion here:

I am A Vietnam Veteran, but I hid this fact from people for several years after the war, because I was caught up in the National shame of being involved in the War in Vietnam.

I did not want friends to know how I spent a couple years of my life facing my mortality and being involved with what so many protested as an American mistake.

When my own service, the United States Air Force, acted as if we should hide the fact of our involvement by ordering us to not wear our uniforms off base, I was convinced it was a shameful thing I had been involved in, even though it was my country that ordered me and over a million others to go to Southeast Asia and defend something.

I never gave it much thought whether it was right or wrong to fight in that war. My country sent me, and because I was a member of the military I went.

When my country abandoned the South Vietnamese I was ashamed of that. I was ashamed of the way the United States ran helter-skelter from the friends they had promised to support.

I was ashamed at the lack of support our country showed us. We were never given the support that America had given its military throughout history. It was as if it were our fault that things did not go right for this country that had gotten us involved and did not have the resolve to finish what it had started.

It is now forty years after my tours in Vietnam, and somewhere along the way my thinking changed in the way I see my personal involvement.

The pride started creeping into my thinking as we, the Vietnam Veterans, started the movement to get a Memorial, "The Wall". Since Americans and our own government abandoned us, we would pay for and build our own Memorial.

The war protesters, the draft dodgers could go on with their lives after Jimmy Carter gave them amnesty.

So, our lives could go on too, even if we only recognized our accomplishments without support of the American people. I started seeing other Vietnam Veterans as Brothers, and shared what only close brothers could share.

I began also, to think of the war as a test, a rite of passage that my Father's generation went through in World War Two, and my Brother went through in Korea. I know now, that had I not gone to Vietnam when I was called, I would wonder all my life if I had what it takes to be an American, called on to do a duty for my country. I don't have to wonder. I served. I went when called.

I have spoken with many men since the war, who did not serve in the military. Many say they wished they had gone. They feel a part of their life passed by while they watched from the sidelines.

They will carry with them to the grave an unanswered question that I was fortunate enough to have answered. Would I serve if called by my country? I did and I survived, and now I walk with my head held high.

When I meet other Vietnam Veterans I immediately feel a bond, a Brotherhood that only we, who have been there, can understand. My life would be missing a large part if I did not have this comradeship with my fellow Veterans.

Some say, "it's been over forty years ago, forget about it." I am here to tell you that you can not forget the defining episode in your life that sets you apart from others.

How can you forget something as life changing an experience as the War in Vietnam was for so many American men?

Some who are old enough to remember where they were and what they were doing when John F. Kennedy was shot, or when Martin Luther King was shot can no more forget that, than a Vietnam Veteran can forget about the combat in which he was involved so long ago.

How can someone who did not experience it, and does'nt know if they would have gone had they been called, tell Veterans to get over it and forget it?

I wore the uniform of The United States Air Force for 26 years. I went when called to serve in Vietnam For that I stand tall! I am proud. I am a Vietnam Veteran!

George Martin, Da Nang RVN

First Tour -1967 - 1968

Second Tour - 1969 - 1970

George is correct... there is a bond between those who have served together in battle that only we can understand.

God bless the Vietnam Veterans!

[JMA]

I would like to honour the 58,156 US soldiers who were KIA/MIA in Vietnam in my own humble way.

They say to us:

I did my duty, I paid the supreme price,
I pray you'll remember my sacrifice,
My life was short, I did my best,
God grant me peace in my eternal rest

To which we reply:

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

(first quote unknown, second quote from: Laurence Binyon's poem "For the Fallen")