Tribute To Vietnam Veterans....Welcome Home.......March 5, 2002

Self and Various web sites for graphics and friends

[Snow Bunny]

Even though we all were in Vietnam at different times, at different places our hearts were united and our lives they were intertwined.
After Vietnam there were no parades, not many people wanted to hear our stories, and if they did listen, they didn't really understand. I know this is a small thank you for all each of you did , but I want to thank you for serving and for being the person you were then and now.
I appreciated what you were did ,and would do in the future to secure the freedom and liberty of this nation and other nations.

A man has not lived until he has almost died…….

For those who have fought life has a flavor……..

The protected will never know.

…….. author Unknown Vietnam Veteran

THE EYES OF A WARRIOR
(A tribute to the Vietnam Veterans, and the Veterans of our past)

In the eyes of a warrior we see strength, loyalty, honor ~ we see pain, horror, and loneliness. When you look into their eyes you see the stony strength of one who has the courage to take on the world so that we may choose. You see the will that stands between fear and a belief that freedom is the most valuable gift that one can give to another. And, you see the heart ~ with its granite-hard conviction that the soul cannot survive without honor. Personal honor cannot be lost or thrown away. It is embedded in the soul of the warrior beyond this earth ~ beyond eternity, and beyond his or her own ability to survive without it.

When you look into the eyes of a warrior, you also see the dead pool of pain. It surrounds and envelopes the inner soul ~ it is a natural by-product of the prize, freedom. One cannot win this prize unless they are willing to endure the pain ~ for this is the price. No one pays this price like the warrior. The horror that is endured....remembered....is the cause of the pain but is also the means by which the warrior wins for us, the freedom and the life that we enjoy. So oblivious are we to the price they pay. The tears they shed somewhere inside where we cannot see unless we look for the brothers they were forced to leave behind, and for the loss ~ the never ending loss of war. In their eyes one will see the deepest most internal ~ and most eternal loneliness we shall ever witness. It comes from the deepest part within them, that part which suffers still, the battle.

If you look deep into the eyes of a warrior, you will see the collage of the human spirit. If you cannot envy this ~ if you cannot love, respect and honor this, then you have no right to the freedom they so willingly won, and then simply gave to you.

Have we ever stopped to think what our world would be like if we had no warriors? How would we have the right to determine for ourselves what we will do on a lazy Sunday afternoon? How would we determine for ourselves what our children will learn and how they will be raised? And the most important question of all ~~ how dare we forget these things are true?

To All Veterans:

"With all my heart I embrace you....
with all my soul I wrap you in
the protective shroud of my pride
in you and my gratitude for what
you have given me".

[swampfox98]

I would like to remind people that the Vietnam war was conducted by the Democrats, who were running rampant after the Kenndy assassination. That is the reason we had over 55,000 deaths. Wish voters would remember that come election time.

[d4now]

A warm Welcome Home to every Vet reading this.
And a sincere sorrowful regret for everytime it should have been said to you and wasn't -
you all deserve so much more for your service and sacrifice.

Amazing Thread S.B. You're an angel.

[XDemocrat]

You've made my day. Thank You Viet Nam 1969-70

[SassyMom]

Thank you, my friend for putting this thread together. You are the BEST!:)

[Toidylop]

Thank you for your service. I hope the good people in this country never forget how we got here with the blood being paid from patriots like yourselves. Thank again sir for your service.

[Marine Inspector]

A Big Ditto Race. I Could not have said it better.

Semper Fi,

Marine Inspector

[68 grunt]

Thanks Snow Bunny! This is a excellent thread and you're a wonderful lady. Thanks for caring, and thanks and welcome home to all the vets.

Semper Fi

[farmfriend]

Bump for the Vets.

[harpo11]

Dear Snow Bunny,

I'll never forgot. My senior high school class wanted to give the school a special gift as was a tradition of the school for the graduating seniors. We wanted a Vietnam Memorial to commemorate the memory of our brave classmates from prior, present and future senior classes that died, or would die, while fighting for our country in Vietnam.

The administration said an emphatic NO! They wanted lights for the football field, or rain gutters. No way, how piddly those things were compared to the spectre of bloody battlefields in a foreign land. We would not back down despite the administrators opposition. We prevailed. They could not argue with our desire and need to honor our fallen classmates.

Thirteen years after I graduated from the school I decided to visit the Memorial. I asked the school clerk and she had no idea what I was talking about. I was alarmed, and thought perhaps the school administrators removed the Memorial. Finally, one of the teachers came in and said yes, the Memorial is still standing in it's original place in a beautiful little garden. Unfortunately there were too many names inscribed upon the marble.

Today my nephews go to the same school. I hope they will look upon the Memorial sometime and remember the bravery of those young men they never knew but should know their hearts were solid gold.

[SAMWolf]

American Women Who Died in the Vietnam War (1959-1975)

M I L I T A R Y


US Army

2nd Lt. Carol Ann Elizabeth Drazba
2nd Lt. Elizabeth Ann Jones
Died in a helicopter crash near Saigon, February 18, 1966.

Capt. Eleanor Grace Alexander
1st Lt. Hedwig Diane Orlowski
Died in a plane crash returning to their duty stations at Qui Nhon from hospital duty in Pleiku, November 30, 1967.

2nd Lt. Pamela Dorothy Donovan
Lt. Donovan, from Allston, MA, became seriously ill and died on July 8, 1968. She was assigned to the 85th Evac. in Qui Nhon. She was 26 years old.

1st. Lt. Sharon Ann Lane
Died from shrapnel wounds suffered during a rocket attack on the 312th Evac. Hospital in Chu Lai, June 8, 1969.

Lt. Col. Annie Ruth Graham
Lt. Col. Graham, Chief Nurse, 91st Evacuation Hospital, 43rd Medical Group, 44th Medical Brigade, Tuy Hoa, from Efland, NC, suffered a stroke and was evacuated to Japan where she died four days later on August 14, 1968. A veteran of both World War II and Korea, she was 52.

US Air Force

Capt. Mary Therese Klinker
Capt. Klinker, a flight nurse with the 10th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, Travis Air Force Base, temporarily assigned to Clark Air Base in the Philippines, was on the C-5A Galaxy which crashed on April 4, 1975 outside Saigon while evacuating Vietnamese orphans. This is known as the Operation Babylift crash. From Lafayette, IN, she was 27. She was posthumously awarded the Airman's Medal for Heroism and the Meritorious Service Medal.


C I V I L I A N


American Red Cross

Hannah E. Crews
Died in a jeep accident, Bien Hoa, October 2,1969.

Virginia E. Kirsch
Murdered by US soldier in Cu Chi, August 16, 1970.

Lucinda J. Richter
Died of Guillain-Barre syndrome, Cam Ranh Bay, February 9, 1971.


Army Special Services

Rosalyn Muskat
Died in a jeep accident, Long Binh, October 26, 1968.

Dorothy Phillips
Died in a plane crash, Qui Nhon, 1967.

Catholic Relief Services

Gloria Redlin
Shot to death in Pleiku, l969.

Central Intelligence Agency

Barbara Robbins
Died when a bomb exploded in front of the American Embassy, Saigon, March 30, 1965.

Betty Gebhardt
Died in Saigon, 1971.

United States Agency for International Development

Marilyn L. Allen
Murdered by US soldier in Nha Trang, August 16, 1967.

Dr. Breen Ratterman
Died in a fall from a balcony in Saigon, October 2, 1969.

United States Department of the Navy OICC (Officer in Charge of Construction)

Regina "Reggie" Williams
Died of a heart attack in Saigon, 1964.

Journalists

Georgette "Dickey" Chapelle
Killed by a mine on patrol with Marines outside Chu Lai, November 4, 1965.

Philippa Schuyler
Killed in a helicopter crash into the ocean nearDa Nang, May 9, 1967.

Missionaries

Carolyn Griswald
Ruth Thompson
Ruth Wilting
All 3 killed in raid on leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot during Tet February 1, 1968.

Betty Ann Olsen
Captured during raid on leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot during Tet 68. Died in 1968 and was buried somewhere along Ho Chi Minh Trail by fellow POW, Michael Benge. Remains not recovered.

Eleanor Ardel Vietti
Captured at leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot, May 30, 1962. Still listed as POW.

Janie A. Makil
Shot to death in an ambush, Dalat, March 4, 1963. Janie was 5 months old.

Evelyn Anderson
Beatrice Kosin
Both captured and burned to death in Kengkok, Laos, 1972. Remains recovered and returned to US.


Operation Babylift

The following women were killed in the crash, outside Saigon, of the C5-A Galaxy transporting Vietnamese children out of the country on April 4, 1975. All of the women were working for various US government agencies in Saigon at the time of their deaths with the exception of Theresa Drye (a child) and Laurie Stark (a teacher). Sharon Wesley had previously worked for both the American Red Cross and Army Special Service. She chose to stay on in Vietnam after the pullout of US military forces in 1973.

Barbara Adams
Clara Bayot
Nova Bell
Arleta Bertwell
Helen Blackburn
Ann Bottorff
Celeste Brown
Vivienne Clark
Juanita Creel
Mary Ann Crouch
Dorothy Curtiss
Twila Donelson
Helen Drye
Theresa Drye
Mary Lyn Eichen
Elizabeth Fugino
Ruthanne Gasper
Beverly Herbert
Penelope Hindman
Vera Hollibaugh
Dorothy Howard
Barbara Maier
Rebecca Martin
Sara Martini
Martha Middlebrook
Katherine Moore
Marta Moschkin
Marion Polgrean
June Poulton
Joan Pray
Sayonna Randall
Anne Reynolds
Marjorie Snow
Laurie Stark
Barbara Stout
Doris Jean Watkins
Sharon Wesley

59 civilians · 8 military · 67 total

www.countryjoe.com/nightingale/sisters.htm

[NCEaglette]

What an amazing tribute you have done here!!!

To all Viet Nam vets:

Welcome Home 

       and

Thank You !!

[T'wit]

Thanks for the heads-up Bunny, Tonk, all. I wouldn't have missed this one. My own service was earlier, but I was there to see -- with adult, comprehending eyes -- how the the Billy Clinton types and Leftwing nasties conspired with the enemy during the war and spat on our servicemen and women when they came home.

The country WAS behind our effort in Vietnam. The Left even now is forever spinning its myth that the war was all wrong and had no support. But it did. In Vietnam, thousands died after the war and millions lived in desperate tyranny because the Communists prevailed. I don't believe that would have happened without the "peace" movement sabotaging the war effort in this country.

[Poohbah]

My father always said, "It wasn't much of a war, but it was the only one we had..."

[d4now]

Great website Corey!

I'm smiling BIG at your attitude.

Thanks for making my day.

[T'wit]

I was reading a book written during WWII, and it mentioned the amazing and absolutely reckless exploits of the famous LIFE photographer, Margaret Bourke-White. I have a very fuzzy memory that she died on duty in Vietnam -- sniper or land mine, perhaps. Does anyone remember?

[Lorena]

Snow Bunny ~ Thank you for preparing this very moving tribute.
DoughtyOne ~ Appreciate you posting the picture of President Reagan at the Wall.
To our Vietnam Vets ~ Heartfelt thanks and gratitude. God Bless You...

[corlorde]

Thanks!

[SAMWolf]

Margaret Bourke-White

BIRTHDATE: June 14, 1904

BIRTHPLACE: The Bronx, NY

EDUCATION: Margaret Bourke-White attended several universities throughout the United States while pursuing a degree in Herpetology (the study of reptiles). They included Columbia University in New York, the University of Michigan, Purdue University in Indiana, Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and she received her degree in 1927 from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. Margaret began to study photography as a hobby while a very young woman. She developed the styles and techniques that she needed for various formats on her own. Her father was also somewhat of a camera enthusiast and he exposed her to the wonders of the photographic lens as a youngster.

FAMILY BACKGROUND: Her father, Joseph White, was of Polish-Jewish background. He was an inventor and an engineer. He believed in equality in education and opportunity for all his children. Margaret's mother, Minnie Bourke, was of Irish-English ancestry and was a loving and nurturing mother. Minnie was completing her college degree at the time of her death. Margaret was married twice; once to Everett Chapman, when she was but 18 years old; and to Erskine Caldwell, the writer, in 1939, after they had worked together. They divorced in 1942.

DESCRIPTION OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Margaret Bourke-White is a woman of many firsts. She was a forerunner in the newly emerging field of photojournalism, and was the first female to be hired as such. She was the first photographer for Fortune magazine, in 1929. In 1930, she was the first Western photographer allowed into the Soviet Union. Henry Luce hired as the first female photojournalist for Life magazine, soon after its creation in 1935, and one of her photographs adorned its first cover. She was the first female war correspondent and the first to be allowed to work in combat zones during World War II, and one of the first photographers to enter and document the death camps. She made history with the publication of her haunting photos of the Depression in the book You Have Seen Their Faces, a collaboration with husband-to-be Erskine Caldwell. She wrote six books about her international travels. She was the premiere female industrial photographer, getting her start in Cleveland, Ohio, at the Otis Steel Company about 1927.

PLACE OF DEATH: Connecticut

DATE OF DEATH: August 27, 1971

[Faraday]

Roque Versace will receive, posthumusly, his Congressional Medal of Honor this year. He was last heard in VC captivity singing the praises of Americans after months of torture. May his spirit continue to embue our soldiers and citizens. May we do our duty in our time, as he and his fellow warriors did in theirs. Let's roll to victory!

[Peacerose]

bttt