PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — “When you sit here today, you show you care. You care about what happened in Vietnam.”
Former Philadelphia District Attorney and State Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron Castille, who lost a leg while fighting in the Vietnam War, recognized how veterans, family members, and others who gathered Monday at the Philadelphia Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Spruce Street in Center City. They came to honor the 648 Philadelphians who died in that conflict.
Castille noted how public opinion about their service has evolved since the war ended 47 years ago.
“We who served in Vietnam recall the sadness of our return to civilian life,” he said. “No parades, no thanks from a grateful nation. Sometimes we were even met with scorn from our fellow citizens.”
Castille said memorials like the Vietnam memorial and the Philadelphia Korean War Memorial Park across the street symbolize the change of heart since the end of the Vietnam War.
“Americans everywhere came to realize that American men and women had died while serving our nation and Vietnam,” he said, ”and they realized the sacrifice of those individuals.”
Castille also paid special tribute to the platoon sergeant who paid the ultimate price to save his life.
“Angel Mendes rescued me from a nameless rice paddy in Vietnam,” said Castille. “Angel himself was wounded carrying me back to a safe spot, and he died of his wounds that day.”
Castille called Mendes his “personal war hero.”
Veterans were joined by many others who also paid their respects to fallen soldiers this weekend at the Philadelphia Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Lois and John Wister of Bridesburg stopped to reflect on each of their friends’ names etched into the wall. They are among more than 600 military personnel from Philadelphia who died in the Vietnam War.
“Over here we have a friend, Jimmy Allen. Then going up there’s another one, Edward Day,” Lois Wister pointed at the wall. “After him is our friend John Feeser, and then when we get over this way we have a friend, his name was Rickey McNichols.”
The couple said they find nothing happy about this holiday weekend.
“I don’t know if I can talk without crying,” she said. “My husband is a Vietnam vet. We have several friends that are right there up on that wall.”
“Ain’t anybody luckier than me,” said John Wister. “I’m still alive. I knew quite a few of them that died. Paid my respects to the ones I knew.”
“We come down to pay honor and respect to them,” Lois Wister added, holding back tears. “They gave it all. They gave everything. So to us, Memorial Day is remembering the fallen. The people who paid the ultimate price to keep our country free.”
Related
Korean War Memorial: ‘It was a brutal, vicious war”
Vietnam veterans weren’t the only ones remembered on Memorial Day.
Others gathered across the street from the Vietnam memorial to remember those lost in what Philadelphia Veterans Court Chief Judge Pat Dugan, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, said is often called the “forgotten war.”
He was the master of ceremonies at the Philadelphia Korean War Memorial Park on Monday.
While “Taps” was played and guns saluted the fallen, Dugan shared his passionate belief that the sacrifice that young men and women gave in America's wars should be remembered.
“It was a brutal, vicious war, and more than 38,000 men never came home,” Dugan said.
.
Of those, 631 came from the Philadelphia area, their names etched in stone at the memorial.
Carl Russ is one of those who made it home from Korea. One of the few at Monday’s ceremony who served in that conflict which ran from 1950 to 1953, he was a teenager when he was sent there.
“I was one of the lucky ones, I guess. The Lord was with me, I guess,” Russ said, as he had left an outpost hours before it was knocked out during the war. “If I'd have stayed, I would have been right in there.
“I don't like to talk about it, because some good friends of mine got killed. I saw them get killed. Young guys, old guys. Yeah, it's a shame.”
“For those men and women who didn't come home, every day is Memorial Day for their families and their brothers and sisters in arms,” said Dugan.
Korean War Memorial Park President John Halligan lamented that the meaning of Memorial Day has been lost to the start of summer and, as he put it, mattress sales.
“If we forget them and what they did, then they have died in vain. As Americans, we cannot let that happen,” Halligan said.
The Korean-American community never forgets, according to Councilmember David Oh who was also in attendance.
“Whenever I got to Korean events, they always start with thanking the U.S. veterans who served in Korea,” said Oh. “Because without those veterans and their sacrifice, there would be no free country. There would be no democracy on the peninsula.”
"I survived. A lot of other people didn't."
Bill Sampolski sat at the bar this weekend at the VFW in Runnemede, New Jersey, surrounded by friends and fellow veterans.
“I got involved with the VFW and I try to give back,” he said, “because I made it and they didn’t.”
Sampolski has about 12 years under his belt as commander of the Runnemede VFW Post 3324. Decades ago, he served in Vietnam as a combat medic. He said Memorial Day is the toughest weekend for him.
“We think back at all the things that happened and all the things we’ve seen, and it brings back something you haven’t seen for 50-some years,” he said. “I survived. A lot of people didn’t. And that’s what I think about [on] Memorial Day.”
Howard Grant agreed.
“Life goes on, there's barbecues and pool parties and all that,” he said, “but take a moment of your life and say thank you. … There’s five words that somebody has to remember: Thank you for your service.”
Grant was in the Marine Corps and completed two tours in Vietnam.
“[Memorial Day] hits home for me because I lost quite a few men in Vietnam,” he remembered. “A lot of people don’t understand that they take things for granted. And when a veteran, when they lose a life, they don’t get it. It’s hard.
“Be it Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, World War I, World War II or beyond, they don’t have a clue. But at least be appreciative. I just want people to understand that if it wasn’t for the men and women that served this country of ours, these people wouldn’t be where they’re at today.”
Related
