This year marks more than 50 years since the Vietnam War ended and the 18-, 19- and 20-year-old, fresh out of school—filled with “other” plans, young men and women, whose lives were forever changed when they were drawn into that conflict are now in their 70’s and 80’s. It is worth reflecting that more than 60% of all Americans who are alive today were born after the Vietnam War ended and have no memory of that era…only the stories of a time long past and a place far away.

Today you are going to hear some of those stories. The committee has gathered some of the words, remembrances, and interviews…a deceased veteran’s letter to a rescued soldier’s son, and more. Memories retold by your friends and neighbors, some of whom served in the jungles of a faraway war. Others served far from the jungles, but often their service was connected to the war in ways we haven’t heard before. One of our neighbors here in Hampton, serving far from South Vietnam, overseas in a military transport and supply capacity, had, as a final assignment before shipping back to the states, the task of loading empty caskets onto a C-130 military transport plane headed for South Vietnam. Stories we may not have heard:

Our story begins with the words of today’s Grand Marshall, Jamie Boss:

I am honored that the committee invited me to discuss Vietnam this morning. Today we remember all those who gave their life in the service of our country. This year marks half a century since the last American troops left Vietnam. 58,220 American men and women died in that conflict. 33,103 of them were 18 years old or younger.

Imagine you have just graduated from high school. You are 18 years old. It is unlikely you can grow a beard. Perhaps you were lucky enough to have received your driver’s license. You are still three years away from being able to vote and drink alcohol legally. You are drafted into the Army and spend 8 weeks learning how to kill with a rifle and a pistol, a machine gun, a grenade, and a bayonet. For bayonet practice, we used a dummy stuffed with straw with the face of Ho Chi Minh. According to the Army, he was the ultimate bad guy. We believed what the army told us. He was the communist mastermind behind the backwards, tiny country of North Vietnam. In basic training, the bywords of the day were “Kill VC. Kill Viet Cong.” We hated Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Cong without knowing anything about them.

Over ten years, 2,700,000 American men and women were embroiled in that conflict. The war was made up of thousands of unique personal experiences. I went to Vietnam in 1968. 57 years ago. I spent 365 days repairing tanks, armored personnel carriers, and self-propelled artillery for the First Infantry Division. We did not win that war. We all knew we would be in Vietnam for precisely 365 days—no more, no less. As a result, our thoughts and motivations were always about getting on that civilian Boeing 707 and flying home on day number 365. Over time, the reasons we ended up in Vietnam have been muddied by politics and lies, but make no mistake. Every young man and woman who went to Vietnam performed brilliantly. They did their job and did it well. They did what their country asked them to do. Many died living up to that request. Unfortunately, they didn’t fully understand why we were there fighting. In truth, from the soldier’s point of view, we were fighting for 365 days of staying alive and then returning home to our families. I never heard anyone talk about winning, just doing their job and getting the hell out of there. Winning was an obvious bridge too far.

No one was safe in Vietnam. We lived in large base camps surrounded by barbed wire. There were over 90 large base camps in Vietnam. At any moment, the Viet Cong could hurl large 122 mm rockets at us from the jungle. As they set the rockets off, they would melt into the jungle and disappear. The roads were dirt, making it easy to bury mines big enough to disable a tank. Trucks carrying personnel never had a chance.

The news generally described Vietnam as a tiny, backward Southeast Asian country. In 1968, Vietnam’s coastline was 40 miles longer than our coastline from Maine to the Florida Keys. Vietnam’s population today is 100 million. Vietnam has existed for thousands of years. It is the third oldest country and was organized in 2879 BC. Vietnam is 809 years older than China.

By the 1850s, the French had begun to colonize Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. By 1887, all three countries were under French control and were now known as French Indochina. Using the population as slaves, the French enriched themselves with rice, rubber, minerals, and opium. Their treatment of the Vietnamese was brutal. Villagers were slaves on French plantations. Ho Chi Minh had been fighting for Vietnam’s independence since 1919. He spent 30 years traveling around the world on ships and freighters, as the French exiled him for speaking out about French colonialism. He worked as a cook, cook’s helper, pastry chef, dishwasher, and artist in New York City, Paris, France, London, England, Russia, and China. He spoke seven languages fluently. During those 30 years, he searched for ideas to free his country from French rule. His primary goal was complete independence from France.

For every soldier in combat in Vietnam, eight soldiers were behind the lines supporting the men in the field. There were at least 90 base camps in Vietnam. The largest, Long Binh, had over 60,000 personnel, 3,500 buildings, and covered an area larger than the city of Cleveland. It had night clubs, massage parlors, golf courses, leather crafts, college courses, photo labs, swimming pools, shopping areas, a wood shop, tennis courts, basketball courts, post offices, and a branch of the Chase Manhattan bank. It incorporated 180 miles of roads. The result was great enmity between those behind the lines and those in the field. That enmity exists to this day. For many, the war never ended. PTSD, effects of Agent Orange, broken marriages, and disabilities from combat still haunt veterans. It is estimated that 271,000 Vietnam veterans continue to experience significant PTSD symptoms. Estimates of Vietnam veterans having committed suicide range from 50,000 to 150,000. No one knows for sure.

It took me over 50 years to thoroughly understand the Vietnam conflict. I now realize how important it is for any government to be transparent in its actions, honorable in its intentions, and consider all possibilities before committing young men and women to combat. Character, integrity, wisdom, humility, and sound judgment are critical requirements for any of our leaders who would put young American men and women in harm’s way.

Ev Hyde: I was not a combat veteran. After HS I worked in Norwich as a lab technician and phlebotomist. I was very good at taking blood, from newborns to seniors at end of life. Good because I didn’t want to hurt my patients. I spent my service drawing, testing and shipping donor blood to those who were in combat.

Of a dozen disabled Vietnam vets I know personally I want to discuss two, who have not been at Memorial Day events. One is someone I worked for on a Home Builder charity remodeling project, needed because his physical disabilities were getting worse with age. I’m not revealing his name. That’s the way he and his wife want it. He still had shrapnel next to his spine too risky to remove and was years in VA pain management. But his greater disability was PTSD. He said, “they took all my guns away, but it was probably just as well.” His wife, of over 40 years, privately said to me, “oh, you should have known him before Vietnam… so much fun.” Once she thought going to DC and the memorial wall might help. He stayed on the bus weeping. He said, “there are names of guys on that wall. I wouldn’t be still alive if it weren’t for them.”

The other was a childhood friend I’ve known since I was six. Russ was a Navy corpsman, combat medic to the Marines. He had his buttocks blown off by a grenade. He spent about six hours wounded and hidden partly under the body of a dead marine, shooting up morphine, with full knowledge he was dying. Knowing the Marines don’t leave comrades behind, he called out rather than be bait for an ambush of soldiers who would try to rescue him. Russ was one of the most positive people I’ve ever met. He was told he would never walk again. After over 100 surgeries he did walk with two canes. He married the nurse who treated him for a year in Boston. Because of the location and severity of his injuries, he wasn’t sure if he could be a father. They had three boys. He taught anatomy to medical students for 30 years. But when he got back to Norwich, he rejected riding in parades, a life time membership in the VFW, anything making him a hero. He once asked me if I knew of any Quaker meetings he could join. Russ said, when they grow up they can make their own decisions, but with a Quaker family history, they’ll have choices. Russ died 8 or 9 years ago. In his obituary there was no mention of his service in Vietnam.

Dave Fowler: In the summer of1965, when our government just started involvement in the Vietnam War, I was drafted. At that time most draftees were inducted into the Army and the probability of going to Vietnam and being a ground solider was good. As a Christian and following the principles of the Bible I did not want to put myself in a position where I would have to fight and probably kill my fellow citizen of the world. I did not agree with the U.S. policy of fighting Communism. On the other hand, I felt fortunate to have been born in the United States, and was a proud citizen.

So I had a decision to make; I enlisted in the Air Force. The recruiter told me it was more like a job after basic training but still fulfilled the commitment to serve the country. The difference was four years versus two years in the Army, but I came away from the war the same way I entered it, health wise, unlike many of my fellow military companions.

The recruiter talked me into electronics and training at Keesler Air Force Base. I was then stationed at Westover Air Force Base. Lucky me. This was a base of B-52 bombers, in direct support of the war, deployed on six month rotations to places like Guam, bombing Vietnam 24/7. From there I was deployed temporarily in support of the war, to Guam, Japan and Okinawa.

My experience was very educational. I enlisted as a kid and came out a man. I was glad to serve my country despite not agreeing with some of the politics of why we were there.

Juan Arriola: I come from a long line of warriors, who fought against government forces and who fought with government forces. World War II saw my father, Francisco, in the U. S Navy shooting down Kamikazes. His two brothers were in the Army in the European Theater, Benito and Severiano, a prisoner of war in Germany liberated while he was digging his own grave. My brother Francisco was a “river rat” in Vietnam, slowly patrolling the Mekong, until shots fired would accelerate the cruise to maximum speed circumventing logs and bodies floating in the water that could catapult the PT boat. He finished his tour of duty in Da Nang, surviving the Tet Offensive. My brother Lasaro, a Marine, served in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Later he became an Embassy Guard. During the fall of Saigon, he was shooting South Vietnamese civilians off the helicopters during the chaos of the evacuation.

I was the lucky one. My draft number was high enough to prevent me from going to Viet Nam. Why, then, did I decide to volunteer?
I signed on with the U. S. Navy after the deaths of two of my close friends in Viet Nam. One, a farmer, was one of the gentlest persons I ever knew, sacrificed himself by jumping on a grenade on his third day in country, saving the lives of comrades he hadn’t even gotten to know. The other, also 18-years-old, was shot up so badly that his closed casket could not be opened. I remember his mother’s despair; she was never assured that her son’s body was in that casket.

I enlisted because after their deaths, I felt guilty. And to carry on the legacy of my family’s service.

I was lucky again when I was home-ported on the East Coast instead of the west coast during the final stage of the war.
Today, I recognize my good fortune, I recognize the service of my friends and of my family, and I recognize the sacrifice that all soldiers made in this, and every war.

Stan Crawford: During my teen years, I thought I’d made it: a construction job in high school and part time employment at a popular restaurant in my hometown, Willimantic. I had a car and I had money – everything a young man needs. My world crashed when my draft number was low. I saw the writing on the wall and started taking matters into my own hands by talking to the Air Force recruiter, and the U. S. Air Force became my life for the next four years, reporting for boot camp at Lackland Air Force Base and then to Amarillo, learning the craft of airplane and sheet metal repair.

After Texas, I was reassigned to Otis Air Force Base where I maintained and repaired 16 Interceptor Fighter jets. There I became good friends with Normand Bernard. Normand received news that he was being sent to Viet Nam. He had just become a father; he and his wife had just had a son. I spoke with our Commanding Officer and convinced him to send me instead. Since the rate was billeted, I was that billet. The Air Force agreed to the request, a family was kept together, and after saying goodbye to my own family, I landed in the Republic of South Viet Nam.

I was assigned to Cam Ran Bay, a small island off the Vietenamese coast, where I was in charge of maintaining the flight worthiness of 100 F4 Phantom jets used in all sorts of missions at all times of the day and night and in all types of weather. Aside from two occasions when my comrade and I repaired aircraft that was downed and damaged in the jungle, I was not in danger. But I did my part for the guys in harm’s way. I did what I could to support the men on the line.

And I would do it again.

Randy Thompson (read by his niece, Lisa Vargas): Seven months after graduating from high school, my uncle, Randy Thompson, received an “Order to Report for Armed Forces Physical Examination.” He passed with, perhaps, too many flying colors, because he was selected to receive some of the most intensive combat training given. For 16 months, he and his comrades climbed mountains, performed beach landings, practiced jungle warfare and experienced live-fire trainings. When given a little book of Vietnamese phrases to learn, there remained no doubt where he was headed.

Sergeant Thompson arrived at Base Camp in Chu Lai in 1967. From then until he left Vietnam in 1968, his Unit experienced some of the most intensive fighting in Vietnam, including the Tet Offensive. During that twelve month period, his infantry experienced 102 soldier deaths. Some of them were Randy’s friends.

Before he died, Randy spoke to the son of a man whose life he saved in Vietnam. This is the letter he first wrote:

On May 9, 1968, we made a 2nd attempt to take out the enemy bunkers on Hill 352, (first try was on May 7). The volume of enemy fire was too much, so we withdrew back down the hill, maybe a distance of 300 meters. Another GI and I had just brought down the body of a dead platoon leader, Lt. Verrett. I don’t know who mentioned it, but someone said there was still a wounded GI up the path who had not come down. My recollection is that two of us went back up to look for him. When we got up there, maybe two thirds of the way up, I saw him (Louis R Voelk) sitting on the left side of the narrow path with his back up against a tree, rifle in his lap, pointed up hill. He seemed quite calm. He might have told me his name at this time (which I guess I never forgot) and said he was waiting to see who was going to reach him first – the NVA from above or his own guys from below. I think I remember your father getting up onto my back in a piggy back carrying position. I had his legs and he reached over and held onto my equipment belt. He didn’t seem to be in much pain. The other guy carried our M-16’s and kept watch up the hill as we came down. Later that afternoon a medevac chopper came and took the three wounded and one dead away. I really didn’t know your dad, as we were in different platoons, except for that day when we were all thrown together getting off that hill. I would like to hear how he described the events to you and see if they are close in description.
Signed, Bruce Randolph Thompson.

Bob Grindle: I grew up in a tiny town, not unlike Hampton, in Northeastern Indiana. It was a time and a place where to disagree with your parents, or any elder, for that matter, was considered an unacceptable level of disrespect, and I was eager to get away. Instead of paying for college, the military would pay me—not much—but, in the Fall of 1961 I signed on with the United States Air Force, and I moved from Texas to Mississippi to Washington state, Florida, North Dakota, California, Nevada, Japan, Alaska to the Philippines to Viet Nam and back to Tacoma, Washington. In that time I came to realize that I cared more about the men and women that I was now serving and working with than I cared about myself. I was no longer the snobby, self-absorbed, skinny, back woods 17-year-old-know-it-all, but rather a committed member of a group of equals who rarely all agreed on anything…we simply slept together, ate together, worked together and occasionally risked our lives together. We were, in the most basic sense, a tribe.

Although I flew several times into South Vietnam on transport and supply missions, I was never assigned to Vietnam and was discharged from the US Air Force in 1966 into a world that seemed to have changed. Perhaps it was me. I returned briefly to my hometown in Indiana, and although there were places in the United States where returning service women and men were celebrated, the larger conversation in 1966 was one of challenge and ridicule, and even though I had never been assigned to duty in Vietnam, I was filled with resentment—I knew a lot of those guys, and I took it personally. But a year later, as a university student on the West Coast I was one of the demonstrators. By 1968 more than a thousand men and women a month were dying in a war that seemed increasingly pointless. Friends that I loved were dying, and I wondered…for what? Students on campuses across the country, including mine, were dying, and I questioned if my country really cared. Was this war really nothing more than a reality show on the 6 o’clock news?

I dropped out of college, bicycled across the United States and began working. I met my wife, settled in Hampton and realized that in the quiet give and take of life off the heavily travelled main routes of our great land is, and always will be, the real strength that underpins our success as a nation.

Al Ameer (read by his son, Joey Ameer): My father enlisted in the Army in 1967 as a 68B20 Aircraft Turbine Engine Repairman stationed at Fort Eustis. After that, he served in Vietnam. For seven months and three days. Like so many of our Vets, he spoke little of his time there. But during his service, he was awarded medals for the National Defense Service, the Valatory Service, the Vietnam Campaign, the Army Commendation and was a Qualified expert with M-16. He was promoted to E-5 Tech Sergeant in 1969 and was honorably discharged in 1973.

What we remember my father for is his service when he returned home here to Hampton, where he was a first responder for sixty years, with the Ambulance Corps and with the Fire Department, and was a mentor to many new recruits. He was recognized as Hampton’s Citizen of the Year in 1995, and last year, he received a proclamation from the Town of Hampton and a citation from the State Assembly for his volunteer service to our town.

My father passed away twelve weeks ago. The legacy he leaves us is one of courage, commitment and volunteerism, which he taught us through daily example. So many Memorial Day speakers have expressed the importance to all of us of building and maintaining, through volunteerism, a strong community, for the sake of those who live here, for the legacy left us by those who came before, for future generations, and for our veterans, making Hampton a place worth returning home to.