A Vietnam-era soldier remembers sitting in a U.S. restaurant in the early '70s, listening to the conversation of college students at the next table.
If they saw a soldier, they said, they would kill him. GIs are murderers, they said, who don't belong in Viet nam. They don't belong.The soldier shrank inside. He had just received his orders to go to Vietnam. He didn't want to go; he was afraid. But he didn't want to stay with people like those students, either. When the war ended just before his tour was set to begin, he felt guilty about that, too.
Saturday afternoon, during ceremonies to dedicate "But Not Forgotten," the Utah Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a soldier who had served in Vietnam gave him a hug.
"I want to thank you guys who fought at home for those of us who were fighting over there. I know you put up with a lot from people."
The healing process continues.
Utahns covered the west lawn of the State Capitol and even spilled up the hill for dedication of the memorial. The formal ceremony began at 2, but by 9 a.m. more than 100 people had gathered to talk, look at photographs and wait for the reading of the names of the 388 Utah men and 1 woman who died or were listed as missing in action in Vietnam between Aug. 13, 1963, and April 4, 1975.
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- An elderly woman hobbles painfully, steadying herself with a walker. Her companion pushes a babystroller. They have come to greet a son and a brother lost in war.
Second husbands have come to help once-young brides say hello and goodbye to first husbands, men whose deaths in the war left them child-widows. "He was a fine guy," one husband said. "I know I'd have liked him. I hope he'd like me and be glad to know I'm taking care of her - we're taking care of each other."
Three teenagers thumb through a photo album, looking at pictures of an uncle they never knew, but have come to honor.
One mother, whose son did his Vietnam-era stint in the United States, says she came to say thanks to the "Gold Star Mothers," women whose sons never came home. "I was so lucky," she says. "And I feel a great bond with these women."
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"If you want to read the name of a loved one, please come right up here," Ted Livingston, a veteran who served on the board of the committee that built the memorial, said. "We have plenty of Kleenex."
The story of the memorial is a bit miraculous, Lew Ross, committee member and master of ceremonies, said. For one thing, three groups tried unsuccessfully to build a monument in Utah. The Vietnam Era Veterans Memorial Committee made it.
"I'm not much of a mystic," he said. "But if you listen you'll hear some wonderful stories." The grey marble came from Georgia, the inscription part from a mine in Pennsylvania. The black granite came from southern India, the same as that used for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C."
The Pennsylvania mine was mined out and there was no marble the right size left. Then, Ross, said, by a "fluke," an ample amount of granite was located in part of the mine that was thought already used up.
The monument is the third largest of its kind in the nation. The crowd, according to Gov. Norm H. Bangerter, "is by far the most outstanding and largest congregation we've ever seen at a dedication."
As a pilot for the Utah Air National Guard, Sen. Jake Garn flew missions into the Saigon area. And although he was never in combat there, he said on one mission his duty was to fly home the bodies of U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam.
" I've never tried to make more gentle landings than I did when I flew that mission."
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- John Bonzo is here to remember his first - and perhaps only - real hero, his father, John Bonzo Sr. His father was the second Utahn to die in Vietnam. His son remembers the father he still sees through the eyes of the 3-year-old by reading a poem he's written. " . . .I remember him, the sergeant. . . . My father, the sergeant."
The statue in the center of the monument is shrouded in maroon cloth, waiting for unveiling at the end of the ceremony. People sit on all sides of it. Some of them wear their war medals pinned on suit lapels. Some wear them on T-shirts.
A fellow in camouflage hoists his baby above his head, tickling him, and the air splits with shared laughter. The father puts his cap on the boy's head and above the tot's delighted smiles his father whispers, "I hope play time is the only time you wear one."
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As a prisoner of war, Lt. Col. Jay Hess did not return to the United States until 1973. That was lucky in an odd way, he said: "As a prisoner, I got a welcome many of you did not receive. . . . I think this memorial says thanks and welcome home."
Veterans representing Hispanics, blacks, Native Americans and women each spoke.
Michael Bledsoe has recovered from his wounds, except for his inability to run. "And that's okay. I'm proud to have served in Vietnam. But I have a slogan: If I have to run to get there, I don't choose to go."
Ute Indian Ed Cuch not only served in Vietnam, he lost his brother in the war.
The war was a lesson in anxiety and separation for Michelle Schneeweis.
"And when I came home I put Vietnam aside. But for the families and friends of the young men and women who were injured and those who did not come home, perhaps it will help to know that their loved ones will not be forgotten by the young women who served and took care of them in Vietnam."
"We have served our country because our country asked us to," said Ruben "Sugar Bear" Johnson, who lost his legs in the war. "Our biggest problem now is the men who did not come home." Johnson asked people to contact their congressmen about the missing prisoners of war.
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- The silence is absolute as the 23rd Army Band plays taps. Three helicopters fly slowly in formation overhead. Their sound is plaintive, odd. As they pass, one streaks off toward the sun, performing the "Missing Man Fly-by."
Why did he veer off? a little boy asks his mother, his tone worried. Why'd he go toward the sun?
"To show you where your grandfather is, love. He's looking for Grandpa."
People hug each other and cry as the Jay Welch Chorale sings "God Bless America." Then the crowds surge around the monument. It is time to embrace the sons, the daughter, the lovers, brothers, spouses and friends who never came home.
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(ADDITIONAL INFORMATION)
Monument facts:
Dimensions: 8 feet high. Area 50 feet in diameter. Uses 140,000 pounds of granite.
What it depicts: A soldier returning from battle with his buddy's rifle.
Sculptor: Clyde Ross Morgan.
Casting: Wasatch Bronzeworks, Lehi, Utah.
Granite work: Mark H. Bott Monument Co. of Ogden, and Dave Bott.
Cost: $300,000, with about $60,000 still to be raised by the Utah Vietnam Era Veterans Memorial Committee. Send contributions to: Vietnam Veterans Memorial Committee, P.O. Box 18366, Salt Lake City, 84118.