The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: twyacht on April 01, 2012, 06:43:37 PM
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Seein' how Bloomberg didn't want a parade for Iraq/Afghan Veterans in NYC,....and seein' how lots of Vietnam Veterans came home without a proper recognition of their sacrifice.. Leave it to us lowly Southerners to put somethin' together.
Long overdue IMHO,...Didn't see it on any other network but Fox News either...(this is my shocked face)....
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/03/31/3141651/vietnam-vets-welcomed-back-four.html
Vietnam vets welcomed back four decades later
By Martha Quillin
mquillin@newsobserver.com
Posted: Saturday, Mar. 31, 2012
Linda Bellotto, of Winston-Salem clutches a photo of her husband Frank Bellotto who died in 2002. He served to tours of duty in Vietnam. On Saturday, March 31, 2012 the USO of North Carolina and Charlotte Motor Speedway, with support from the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters, will honor the service of Vietnam Veterans with a Vietnam Veterans Homecoming Celebration for the military members and their friends and families. The event is a tribute to the more than 216,000 North Carolina residents who served in Vietnam, some 1,600 of whom made the ultimate sacrifice.. John D. Simmons - jsimmons@charlotteobserver.com
Vietnam veterans homecoming celebration
War memories remain vivid
CONCORD James Gooch remembers some of his fellow soldiers stopping on their way home from serving in Vietnam to buy new civilian clothes and throwing away or even burning their uniforms.
They didn’t want strangers to know where they had been.
Saturday, thousands of them proudly displayed their former military affiliations on ball caps, T-shirts or leather vests as they walked around inside the Charlotte Motor Speedway complex for the Vietnam Veterans Homecoming Celebration. Now, strangers came up to thank them.
“It feels good,” said Gooch, 62, of Henderson, who cooked and drove a truck for the Army’s 275th Signal Company while in Vietnam.
It’s a different time. When the U.S. pulled out of the conflict in 1973, much of the public had turned against involvement in Vietnam and was in no mood to honor the troops who had served there. Today, people seem more able to separate the politics of a war from the people who are sent to fight it.
Maybe that’s why, 40 years later, some 62,500 people, including vets, their families, members of dozens of advocacy groups and others who just wanted a chance to say thanks, came out for the homecoming event, the first of its kind in North Carolina and maybe the biggest ever for those who served during the Vietnam era.
In 2010, North Carolina had more than 250,000 veterans who had served during the Vietnam War era, according to the Veterans Administration.
Gooch said the first time anyone ever acknowledged his service was just a few months ago, when his young grandson came home from school and said, “Thanks for serving, Pa.”
By Saturday afternoon, he had lost count of how many times people had reached out during the homecoming to pat his arm or shake his hand. Some were fellow veterans who had been where he had been and seen what he had seen.
The free event was sponsored by the USO of North Carolina, the N.C. Association of Broadcasters and the Speedway. Part music festival, part motorcycle rally, part military trade show, it included concerts by the 82nd Airborne Division Chorus, George Clinton and Charlie Daniels. The U.S. Air Force conducted a flyover and the Army’s Golden Knight parachute team dropped in.
‘Appreciate the attention’
Organizations that serve veterans had set up tables inside a garage area, where they handed out pamphlets about post-traumatic stress syndrome and illnesses associated with Agent Orange exposure. They gave away key chains and drink-can insulators.
While most of the crowd appeared to come from North Carolina, it included people from South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia as well.
Horace Kerry, 71, of Durham, made the trip. “You’d be surprised the feeling it gives you,” he said, to be in the company of so many others who had served in the war and to be approached by people who want to say they appreciate the sacrifice he and others made. Kerry, who was in the Marine Corps, served in Vietnam from 1962 to 1964.
Brick Nicholson of Clayton was there in 1968, as a helicopter pilot. He’s now part of the N.C. Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association, which has amassed a collection of a half-dozen vintage aircraft it displays for special events.
Saturday, the jungle-green helicopters were a popular attraction parked on the speedway infield. Children climbed into the seats and imagined what it would be like to fly, and some former crew members, pilots and door gunners got in and remembered how it was.
“I think they appreciate the attention,” Nicholson said of the veterans who posed for pictures with the aircraft.
Along with the helicopters, the group displays maps of Southeast Asia, and veterans linger over these, pointing out to friends and family the village and province names they know.
Once, they didn’t want anyone to know where they had been. Now, Nicholson said, “They can point to a place and say, ‘I was there.’“
(http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o182/Anthonyhroncich/New%20York%20Pictures%202004/d0fb.jpg)
*****
For my Uncle who was there, and the countless others who never made it home, and the countless others that did come home,....Thank you from a humbled and grateful nation.
(http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee241/photobastard/Soldiers-VietnamWarPeaceSign.jpg)