National Vietnam War Veterans Day – saying little, meaning much

March 29 was National Vietnam War Veterans Day, a federally recognized day honoring those who served and died in the Vietnam War, signed into law by President Donald Trump on March 28, 2017.

What can I say that hasn’t been said of a war splashed across television as it happened, saw its returning veterans spit upon and temporarily became a metaphor for everything wrong with America?

My thoughts are of those we lost, those who survived and are still fighting, and those who came home and then lost the fight.

So rather than be another media voice in the cacophony around the war, let me present instead those who have no voice — those from Santa Rosa County and neighboring Century who died in Vietnam, according to www.virtualwall.org.

Let the white space here also represent the 58,205 other Americans who died in Vietnam, according to the national archives.

Century

LCPL Preston Roosevelt Scott

Gulf Breeze

PFC Daniel Jerry Mullen

Jay

SFC Howard Carlton Ard

WO John Henry Cannon

CWO Clifford Devon Wright

Milton

PFC Richard Loyd Bray III

SP4 Donald Stanley Gillman

PFC Charles David Hatfield

SP4 Billy Wayne Lamb

1LT Warren Stephen Lawson

SGT Robert Ernest Mason

SP4 William Herbert Mayhair

1LT Edwin Lenard Shubert Jr

PFC James Henry Smith

SP4 Larry Gene Yeager

Aaron Little is the editor of the Santa Rosa Press Gazette and the Crestview News Bulletin. You can reach him at alittle@srpressgazette.com.

This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: National Vietnam War Veterans Day – saying little, meaning much