The Memorial Day Observance at The Wall 2021 will feature keynote speaker is Karl Marlantes.
It has been a difficult year for us all so we will be live streaming the ceremony from The Wall for those who cannot make the trip.
Karl Marlantes is a Vietnam veteran who served with the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines as well as an author of three books including Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War.
Karl is also a Rhodes Scholar and earned the Navy Cross, a Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and 10 Air Medals.
Ronny Ymbras will talk about Memorial Day, and pay his respects to those who passes as well as his platoon mates who lost their lives in the Vietnam War
TRANSCRIPT – Transcript and Subtitles are generated automatically by YouTube and may contain errors.
the board of directors staff there are great volunteers i’d like to welcome you to our annual memorial day observance at the wall to honor and remember those veterans who we have lost and served our country i just have to say we’re back and i know things look a little different those of you that have been to our ceremonies here before it looks a little different um you know most things are back to normal but not quite everything our co-host the national park service they don’t have all of their staff back on a permanent basis yet and so we don’t have uh as big a stage and some of the pump and circumstance that we normally would have but it really doesn’t matter because our commitment to be back here in person and to honor our vietnam veterans and all of our nation’s veterans on memorial day uh it’s greater than ever so welcome
when we first began planning for an in-person ceremony this year the restrictions only allowed for 50 people for an outdoor event and i told the superintendent of the park that if we can only have 50 people i should be here with 49 vietnam veterans standing on the grass
thankfully most of the restrictions have been listed and i know we’re all looking forward to really getting back to normal before we begin i’d like to recognize some of our guests here today first welcome home to all of our vietnam veterans to this place that our nation has set aside for you
welcome to all of our gold star family members
and welcome to all of those watching on our website and on the ddmf facebook page these are the places you’ve become accustomed to watching our ceremonies over the past year
and i’d like to welcome all the folks in town for rolling to remember here to bring awareness and accountability for our prisoners of war and those missing in action
you know this has been such a tragic year for us all almost 600 000 americans have died from the pandemic vietnam veterans and some close to our own dvmf and wall family have died from the pandemic and from other causes they’re not here with us today long time ddmf chairman of the board john dibble passed away in march on vietnam veterans day and just last week senator john warner died at the age of 94. both of those men spoke on this very spot after spearheading the legislation that authorized the construction of a national vietnam memorial here on the national mall senator warner was the keynote speaker in 1982 for our dedication and john dimble helped lead our organization for the past 20 years as we continue to care for the memorial and conduct programs like this ceremony
we also lost four of our yellow hat national park service volunteers or many of them here today and some of them were not they really are the face of this memorial to about five million people every year and i know the superintendent of the park will speak more about them now to begin our ceremony i’d like to introduce our chaplain to provide today’s invocation he delivered the closing benediction during the dedication ceremony right here in 1982 and i am honored to call him a friend please welcome rabbi arnie
let us reznikov the lord our god and god of generations passed you commanded us remember remember peace on stories of the past but also recall retell dreams and promises of future better times and so on this memorial day at this memorial wall i remember and i pray i pray all lives lost in our armed forces in service to our nation i invited others to join with me in prayer and in this world by sadness fear and strife i know some have given up unfair some have lost their faith in faith for them i ask they join me at least to dream to reaffirm we have a dream that we can make a difference that we can still change the world dream with me that those we honor on this day will never be forgotten but we will build a future that when we need not dig new military graves and no new names need to be inscribed on memorials of war a time we beat our source to passions and war will be no more after vietnam we built this wall to heal a nation torn apart by grief and war heal us again i pray give us courage strength and wisdom to keep today’s divisions from tearing us apart and when we pray that our lives become our prayers praying with our bodies praying with our legs standing up for what is right for equality humanity justice for righteousness in what we do and say today to honor those who sacrificed their lives let us embrace old patriotic words the liberty show that once inspired founders of our nation and now must touch our hearts inspire us again join hand in hand brave americans all by uniting we stand by dividing before i pray we can unite and stand i dream we can unite and stand and united through our words our actions and our dreams proclaim liberty throughout the land
please the joint armed forces color guard from the military district of washington for the presentation of the colors please stand as you are able and remain standing until the colors have departed color guard present the colors
government
i pledge allegiance to the plan of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all
so
oh
please
six
i’d like to acknowledge a few more of our questions yesterday we’re pleased to have some distinguished active duty service members with us to escort our name edition families to the wall later in the program welcome to brigadier general michael eastman the sergeant leader of the army michael grenson sergeant major of the marine corps troy black command sergeant major franklin velez and mastery gunnery sergeant jorge has to be awesome
thank you all for joining us here today being a part of our ceremony
each year the vietnam veterans memorial fund holds the ceremony in partnership with the national park service please welcome jeff reinhold superintendent of the national mall and memorial parks
good afternoon veterans our desks on behalf of the national park service it is my pleasure to welcome you to the vietnam veterans memorial which was conceived and built on behalf of a grateful nation to honor and recognize more than 2.7 million american men and women who served in the conflict not since the veteran’s day observance of 2019 more than a year and a half ago have we been able to join together at this memorial in person to honor those who served and to mourn those we lost in the vietnam war we’re incredibly grateful to be here today however as jim mentioned just because we haven’t been here in person on important dating remembrance like memorial day and veterans day doesn’t mean that the men and women we honor were forgotten our partner to vandal veterans memorial fund made sure that even when we couldn’t get together there were virtual observances and online commemorations my sincere thanks to bbm president and ceo jim knox and his tireless staff for their efforts over the last 15 months to ensure that even during a pandemic vietnam veterans and the families of those who served in sacrifice will remember i’d like to offer a heartfelt welcome to the veterans and their families who are here with us today welcome to your vietnam veterans memorial we are humbled that you’ve chosen to spend part of your memorial day here with us i would like to extend a very special welcome back to our yellow clad volunteers who provide invaluable assistance in the care and interpretation of the vietnam veterans memorial they are returning to the national mall sites this week for the first time since the pandemic started you know how much
i know how much this memorial means to all of you and how hard it was for you to be awake i appreciate your patience over the last 15 months
i would also like to take a few moments to remember several members of our volunteer corps who passed away since we last gathered great chase phil harris rick hockstep ross stancliff just work with us epitomize what memorial day and remembrance is all about i would like to say a few words never seen without a smile according to his fellow volunteers paul stancliff was a navy veteran of vietnam war he started volunteering volunteering at the wall in 1982 serving for nearly three decades before his death in january his wife cindy is likewise a lifelong volunteer in fact they met at the law before marriage in 1999 all made thousands of key chains over the years with the vietnam service ribbon colors and gave them away to visitors
bill harris was another long time volunteer with over 20 years of volunteer work at the memorial a veteran of the 173rd airborne in vietnam those colleagues at the wall remember his big booming voice and his big heart he could be seen regularly giving tours of the mall off of the school boards and then he branched out moving forward
he loved giving programs to visitors and his wallpaper remembered fondly as high theater rick huxley was another vietnam vet having served as an abcd rick volunteered on sunday mornings and was almost always the first volunteer at the memorial on those days he was a quiet dedicated volunteer who treated visitors like family there is a wonderful photo of rick with his daughter and granddaughter in front of the wall you can see how proud he was of them and they have him great chase was one of our long-distance volunteers traveling from his home in california several times a year to volunteer at the memorial greg spent his career in california highway patrol and also served for years as an officer in the civil air patrol a lifetime of service but not vietnam veteran himself where he had a special connection to the wall his brother fred chase was killed in vienna his name is on 39 waste panel lincoln greg stark dedication of being volunteers in the service they provide to the vietnam veterans memorial and its visitors reminds me of some words i recently came across from jennifer grantham who was governor of michigan at the time currently served as the u.s secretary of energy ceremonies are important she said but our gratitude has to be more than visits to the troops and once a year memorial day services we honor the dead best by treating the living gun greg rick bill and paul were the embodiment of this sentiment as are their fellow volunteers they honor the 58 281 names on the wall not just the memorial day but each and every day of the year they and our national park service staff are ambassadors to more than 4 million annual visitors offering a warm greeting keen insight and knowledge a sympathetic ear and words of comfort to the agreement their dedication will provide a bit of inspiration for all of us throughout the year they remind us to honor those who sacrifice so much by taking care of ourselves
you know this month mark for 46 years since the last american casualties in the vietnam war yet for some families those years did not bring closure as they waited for the family and their friends i call your attention to our empty chair here as a symbol of the 1584 americans who still remain missing or unaccounted for from the vietnam war yet in remembering them we must all recognize that we shall not rest until there is the fullest possible accounting of those who remain missing from the vietnam war
now i would like to ask our name edition families and their escorts to start making their way to the wall
thank you we have made in our tradition that during our memorial day ceremony we have the first reading of the names of those added to the memorial and those repatriated since we were unable to do so last year today we will read the names for the first time of the five men added and the five repatriated in 2020 and 2021. with these positions the total number of honored on the wall is now 58 281. as you were able please stand as i will now read the names of the service members
oliveira
michael c flyer
andrew j smith
larry artem
frederick
i believe
neil
i’m sure all of you will join me on this
day
um
it is my pleasure to introduce nancy wilson who will speak on behalf of
was women in the u.s navy nurse corps from 1964 to 1969. from february 1968 to february 1969 she served on the uss repose assigned to the i-4 area she was one of 29 nurses with as many as 1 000 patients on board following active duty nancy became a family nurse practitioner ladies and gentlemen thank you
right here everybody welcome home being selected to represent the 11th military volunteers in vietnam
as i am and that is the most critical thing at the time women also failed goals as journalists photographers administrators intelligence and air traffic control the titles and ranks may have different but all were military women serving during the vietnam war the impact of the war was built by everyone regardless of when this or names of eight women are edged on the vietnam in 1956 was the year the first army nurse ward arrived in vietnam and they were charged with teaching nursing skills to vietnamese in far southern vietnam it was not until the 1960s that the female military increased in significant numbers several thousand civilians primary females also worked in countries during the war with multiple charitable organizations including but not limited to the uso catholic relief peace corps and the red cross some of these individuals were assigned to work directly with the military while even larger numbers worked with the vietnamese intelligence the red cross was most closely associated with the military because of the hospitals being on the repose i knew there was someone close by who could help patients contact families etc the red cross donut valleys were in country with the goal of providing a bit of homes to more isolated servicemen there were 59 civilians killed during vietnam the government never tabulated or documented how many military women and civilians served in vietnam we were unrecognized as individuals from experience or trauma anxiety fear exhaustion and stress just as the men experienced we were vilified when we got home and tried to hide our involvement and our feelings the lack of documentation contributed to the decades-long delay in women being recognized as eligible for veterans benefits mass casualties of new related young men take no time to deal with feelings and the women bury these feelings people and deeply not allowing themselves to cry this day there are elements of our experiences that will never surface i know that from my own experience as i never talked about vietnam or pride for over 20 years after i got home the veterans administration was scared has carried out research studies about problems veterans experienced following awards some immediately related to the effects of agent orange exposure including multiple myeloma and prostate cancer there is no no documentation of research studies related to the effects aging orange had on the bodies of female veterans including breast cancer spine and soft tissue problems these women needed to know that their actions and devotion to the servicemen made a difference and were appreciated a simple thank you would have gone a long way diane carlson evans captain army bruce ford was a consistent force and momentum that resulted in the vietnam women’s memorial foundation with vietnam women’s memorial is located 300 feet from the level and is the healing place for all women involved captain evans conceived the idea from 1983 and after a 10-year joke of multiple roadblocks was able to secure the approval of the vietnam women’s memorial statute to be located on the wall the vietnam women’s memorial was supported by hundreds of americans who were committed to this project by sharing their time and talents as needed rear end and francis shea buckley retired was one of these important voices i knew fran as a shipmate she was unreposed she was in charge of the operating room which was going usually 24 hours a day i knew um your admiral berkley served on the journey that made the final selection of the statue designed and created by clement goodale there are four individuals in the statute three were all attention to each other the nurse including the new soldier the nurse washington income the fourth figure is even behind holding an empty helmet and is believed to represent the civilians who were present the women planning at a place where they can feel support and experience healing now all of the world through this mammalia will be able to recognize the sacrifices made of the women involved in the vietnam thank you
thank you so much nancy it’s a pleasure to have you here and thanks to the service of all of our women who serve as even those in new england
it’s now my pleasure to introduce today’s keto speaker carl atlantis carl is the best-selling author of matterhorn what it’s like to go to work antique room he graduated from yale university i was a rhodes scholar at oxford left after one semester to join active duty in the u.s marine corps as an infantry officer he served with the first italian fourth marines from october 1968 to october 1969 and was awarded the navy cross for action in the announce ladies and gentlemen please welcome
i’m so sure i gotta lay sideways to cast a shot
i’m so short i gotta have a stepladder and buy my shoes
i’m so short i gotta stand on my helmet
in the next couple of decades most of the vietnam veterans were going to rotate home
the last thing that i want to do is go to my grade wondering what it was all about what was the meaning
two million of our allies and our enemies and civilians
and what i came to understand is if you don’t find me the makeup and everybody here will make meaning of these losses and that war in their own unique way it might be different from everybody else but that’s the way it has to be done because there’s no universal meaning that i’ve had
but what i thought i would do today is i’m just going to share
and then we’re going to get a little more personal i’m not a pastor i know a lot of people came back from that war saying never again no i’m a marine and i don’t have too many foreign
did you ever wonder the meaning of your whole life simply to serve as a warning to others
i kind of thought about the vietnam war in that way we’ve gotten involved in a lot of dumb stuff during vietnam and after vietnam we’ve got kids acting like police and places you have to go to google maps figure out where it is we’ve got police acting like paratroopers you got to start thinking about this
what’s the meaning of stupid war there is nothing but we can make meaning out of it by not doing it anymore
you remember the 80s there was something called vietnam syndrome that was that was something that was bad i’m afraid i’d like to see it come back colin powell who served in vietnam had eight questions that had to be answered before we went to war
the american people’s backing is there an exit strategy is there a military objective can we obtain it these are important questions and i think we have to remember them the next time we choose to put our children at risk or to kill other people now not as i said against war
but i’m rabid about going to the war to absolutely defend what i consider to be american values
that’s where the risk of your life
notice i said risking your life everybody who wrote this wall chose to risk their lives their lives are sacrificed because of bravery and bad luck you veterans know you’re in the wrong hole when the shell comes in that’s it but everybody on this wall risked their lives but that was the important act and many many people in the armed forces risk their life by putting their signature on the line and have the orders god have them doing support work by glad that’s what they are doing and we need them and they have to be remembered
okay we had this image of you know here here we are the company commander comes up to dfc marlandes and he says uh marlanis you’re sending you on a suicide mission
i’m sorry to say that you won’t be coming back because you’re going to be dying for american values wait a second i’m not sure about this
risking your life though is very different and that’s the that’s
what is worth risking your life for what is worth let’s face it killing other people
they’re in our founding documents it is not that hard
rule the law the right behavior supports trial by jury nobody is above the law there are many many other ways to do this and they should be fought especially
thomas jefferson life liberty and he wrote the pursuit of happiness he didn’t need the feeling you get when daddy buys a new car all right that’s happiness i wouldn’t risk
18th century when jefferson was writing happiness meant something different than it means today it meant thriving and fulfillment and it’s too bad that we can’t translate that original document in today’s language but i would definitely risk my life if there was any government that tried to stop me from reaching my human potential and that’s what jefferson was talking about
and then he had an interview some did not
govern the
if we’re not fighting for these things we need to think again and that’s the meaning of a war that we didn’t quite get it all lined up in my opinion
those of these people are looking down on us and they don’t want us to sort of you know be singing about bombs bursting in air without thinking about it i love that song
i love it but i know what bombs bursting in heir does to you in flesh and so when i hear those words i have a thought in my mind about how serious this is and i want our patriotism being stealing and flinty and serious
it’s not about fireworks
i’m gonna get a little more personal i was writing matterhorn to let us like to go to war i have a friend’s name sort of a zenith monk and he said to me says carl what you’re doing is you’re turning your ghosts into ancestors
what he meant by that is ghosts haunt you those are the things you stuck inside like nancy was saying don’t talk about it 20 years without even telling me to stop that’s the ghost that’s going to get you into drinking bar fights divorces despair yes suicide
what we did in vietnam what’s been done in iraq and afghanistan these people and us we’ve done that they’re part of us but they can’t be ghosts i’m never gonna get rid of them i’m never going to be able to change the fact that i killed a lot of people that made a lot of mistakes so i can get them out here in front of me where it doesn’t come so i won’t end up doing some of those crazy things that we all will happen
my two examples are simple i i got my ghost turned ancestors
the first one was when i came home and i told this story before i i mean i was so fresh out of the tongue was that jungle rock in my uniform i was at the uh an annex to the pentagon and i had to take some papers from the white house and i mean my goodness was heading down you know out of dem street and across the street where a bunch of students shouting obscenities at me flipping me the bird waving north vietnamese and vietcong flags and i’m on the other side of the street and every shot and baby killer and i’m thinking to myself two things one is the people you’re calling baby killers are probably three or four years younger than you are the only reason that you’re on that side of the street and they’re not is that they didn’t get to go to college i wanted to walk across the street and talk to those people but could you imagine green and uniform but the headlines of the washington post marine attacks peaceful protesters i wouldn’t do it i was stuck i couldn’t reach across the street that ghost haunted me and then i wrote matterhorn that’s our story that’s our story that’s the story of a 19 year old trying to grow up to a very tough spot
the other personal turn of the ghost into an ancestor was i killed it right up front and personally that’s not usual all of you veterans know that you get a distance and usually you kill a goop or a crowd for a cow head or hodgie because the reason you’re doing that is you can’t kill another human being it’s just not in your bones to get the job done but this particular instance i had been knocked out by an angry in fact that was what put me under a pose i bought i called nancy twice but she left me close a week before i got there not here today i was going around to the side of this kid he was throwing hand gear legs at us and uh i was probably closer to him than the front row here and i was laying on the ground with my m16 right on him and he turned and looked at me with a hammer named cam one of those
and we locked guys that was not done and i remember
i pulled the trigger and i killed them
about 20 years later in the early 1990s i’m driving down interstate five it’s two o’clock in the morning i’ve got country music on the radio all the kids are back home
but i was sophisticated
i got that stuff out it wasn’t easy but i got out and what’s important about that is not the particular act that you make to get your ghost through your answer is that you get it out and you get it in front of you and there are lots of ways of doing it you can start by talking to your spouse just talking about it gets it out you can do things like join team rubicon use your skills you can fight foreign
the important thing about all that is it’s easy to talk to the veterans it’s not so easy to talk to non-governments because hey they may not quite understand i mean i’ll i’ll stay open i got a thrill out of children oh i don’t want to hear that but that’s part of me definitely and if i hide that how can i ever join the community if i wasn’t hiding who i am so the important thing is you’ve got to get it out and being kind of non-veterans because you can’t get back on the community unless you do a getting back to community is what’s so important for healing for health we’re not solitary animals
now there’s other ghosts these are the ghosts of guys i knew right behind me here charlie country first battalion ford marine was there about two years and we had 81 killed 81 charlie company members running this war i don’t find any meaning in their deaths that happens 50 years ago
meaning has to be now and me is up to me to make me
i woke up one morning maybe 15 years ago and i realized that i spent my whole life trying to raise the cup and it occurred to me that that was the wrong metaphor for life life isn’t about a race between individuals life is a relay we’re in a relay race and there are batons that are handed to us and we carry them and we’re going to hand them on
that’s what we’re here for to run that relay these guys here have already passed through the times are we going to drop them if we draw them then their lives are lost in green
there’s no meaning here
484 and we abandoned hillary before three times where’s the meaning of math there isn’t but with this 20 year old squad leader could do is get his squad to do really tough things and do them well he died being out of machine gun that was the objective of his squad and what the time did he pass to me doing tough things first and doing them yourself before you ask other people to do it you died and if i let that i let that guy with him
his mom had him delivered him fleeing from the red army and lived away there’s been thoughts hated communists something with a passion they took his country they took his home
he joined the marines
he was a radio operator 18 wide beyond his ears blackers got there done second inexperienced knights start to come up with some taco baby order and this kid standing next to me sort of lead in like this
i go like that and he’d say well maybe if you did it this way
he wasn’t afraid of but he was able to work and he could manage him quite well managing him i mean he destroyed me and he died fulfilling my work trying to carry out a slow admission
but what’s his become
18 year old squad leader 12 marines life and death decision i mean most 18 year olds are scared if they have to put on the junior crowd
there’s another even more personal thing about thomas
we were way up in the mountains and it was cold it’s cold yes it was cold we didn’t have any jackets we just slept in our utility ships and uh we had consciousness and i got hypocrite i mean it was bad i couldn’t talk i was chattering so much and i was shaking so much and i started to get loopy thomas knew that i had to throw him in the water he grabbed me and he took me to the ground and he wrapped me up with his arms and hugged me and wrapped me in the contour line of the taco and stayed with me until i stopped the baton that i carry from thomas is my own life
i can get real emotional here
and i know a lot of you have a very similar experience think about the batons that were given to you stanley earth 19. you’re on an assault and i come up on stand you’ve been shaking and clearly striking to death and he can’t see the magazine in his m16 because his hands are shaking too much and so i took his m16 and jammed the magazine in there and pulled the receiver back around he said there you go he looked at me he’s still shivering and breaking he went up the hill to take out two positions automatically
the baton is commitment
george jamaica we called him canada british columbia and he came south and joined koreans and he was some of you read babylon he is the inspiration for vancouver he’s
and he was savvy he never risked anybody’s life
he was badly moving forward before he was in the shell bleeding the corbin stuck ideas
comes
we’ve already lost a lot of budget
there are four people who wear silver
braces this is the time for me the warrior idea
sad skilled courageous full of love for his congress
we had two canadians killed in charlottesville many canadians volunteered many died
for their kids
if i can carry those batons with some humility and not draw them and pass them on somebody’s a good runner before i go
now like many of you like nancy said when i came back i didn’t find anybody throwing garlands around my neck
tried to fit in wouldn’t tell anybody that i served i wouldn’t put it on my resume because i was afraid it would not give me the job that was serious
and then one day i got ashamed
i started to turn that ghost into an ancestor my god i’m going to go find those medals tomorrow right stuck
he got one of
about three years after matterhorn was published
know now would you do it again
i had to take a deep breath i’ve never been asked i’ve never even thought about it before
and i i know the world
yes i would do it again because those ancestors i carried are part of me i like who i am and if i had to not do it again i wouldn’t be me and all of us are us because of this experience because of these deaths
i’m proud i’m proud to be a vietnam veteran
so i’m going to just leave you with one final thought somewhat modified from the way we used to see it
i’m so sure that what you’re seeing and hearing now is a video
uh
um i’m reminded i’m not a vietnam veteran i lead the memorial fund um but i’m not a vietnam veteran i’m a dental store inventor and part of the reason i’m here is because i i picked up a design
all of us were served in unicorn after the vietnam war we picked up at the time it was handed to us by those who served before many of us like me who loved the military at the time it’s been passed to younger generations that’s part of the legacy we all share as veterans and i think that’s something we can all be proud of um it’s particularly meaningful to me because you know i was raised to believe that
and when i went to work for my country i i could not have had a more different experience we could not have asked for more support and respect while we were putting ourselves in harm’s way on behalf of our country i come to realize that that was because of we need you here today when you came back home made a commitment that you would never let our country send another generation of men without the proper respect and support that they deserve that’s how i’ve seen the time that you hand it to me and to future generations that is part of your legacy i think more than victories on the battlefield helping our country realize that we should always honor our warriors regardless of our feelings about any particular award that is something to be proud of
amazing legacy
i also am serving in this role today because there was another time that has passed me as part of that younger generation and that is to honor and to remember to never forget the service and sacrifice of the names on this wall all of our vietnam veterans who served came home
as many of our vietnam veterans pass
it is up to us those who come after them to pick up at the time to remember and to honor otherwise these names all the history is only as we remember them with ceremonies like this with our replica wall that travels around the country with education and outreach to our younger folks who understand maybe about the vietnam war but more importantly about the service of our vietnam veterans that’s how we make sure that their legacy is never forgotten and that is also at the time that i know our amazing staff vietnam veterans memorial plan carry it’s also at the time of the men and women the children grandchildren veterans still carried many more of them are picking up that baton and they’re coming to our reading of the name ceremony we have every five years to remember their loved ones uh to come to the wall for events like this the next generation is so that the
legacy
if i could ask all of those who are laying greece today please come forward
while our repairs get into position i’d like to take a moment to acknowledge more of the quotes in our audience today i’d like to give my personal thanks to all of our yellow hat volunteers who do so much to honor and remember our veterans every day
all year long finally i want to thank a small army of dd about volunteers around the country who’ve been working for more than a decade to find the photos of those listed on this wall for our online wall of faces these volunteers span the country from florida to hawaii and many places in between of the 58 281 people listed on the wall and through the dedication and diligence of these volunteers we now have less than 60 to go to have at least one photo for every name
now allow me to direct your attention to the representatives of several of our nation’s leading veteran service organizations as they join us in lay in greece in honor of the fallen ladies and gentlemen please welcome back piper chris jackson who will be playing amazing grace
national park service
vietnam veterans memorial climate the vietnam women’s memorial foundation
things are rising american gold star mothers
vietnam veterans memorial volunteers
things and daughters in touch
paralyzed veterans of america
vietnam veterans of america military order of the purple heart
vietnam veterans of america chapter 227
jewish war veterans of the usa
verizon veterans advisory board red catcher 199 light inventory brigade association
the army ocs alumni association the american legion
in closing let me encourage each of you to reach out and thank our veterans and their families not just on memorial day but every day of the year thank you all for coming our ceremony concludes with the playing of caps by staff sergeant robert water of the u.s marine corps band please stand
so
bye
thank you all for coming and for joining
us
i didn’t have anything to do with it
do you remember my name
foreign
um thank you
something set up
do you know what i’m handling
okay
has a very active uh he’s here okay that’s good to know thanks oh okay great enough to do every museum
me
my wife
that was one of the most fabulous speeches i’ve ever heard by mr carmellantes right to the point that every soldier sailor marine coast guard’s been ever felt gotta you gotta get in the mix you gotta feel what they felt and pass it off thank you everybody for being here 20 21. 53 years ago for me to come home so many people especially on that panel over there 46 west to a friendly fire incident 13 of my paratrooper buddies were killed the flash sad day 22 mothers thank you for them welcome home brothers
