The Fall River Vietnam Veterans Remembrance Day ceremony was held on March 29, 2022, to honor Vietnam veterans and acknowledge their sacrifices. The event included an opening prayer by Veterans War Council Chaplain Edward Bailey, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the National Anthem sung by Miss Fall River, Lindsay Aruda. Mayor Paul Coogan delivered remarks, emphasizing the importance of recognizing veterans despite the divisive era of the Vietnam War. Robert Guynan, Commander of the Fall River War Veterans Council, and Lenny Tavares, a former commander, also spoke about their experiences and the city's support for veterans. The keynote address was given by Sergeant Major Harry Therian, a highly decorated Vietnam combat veteran with two Purple Hearts. He provided a poignant account of the harsh realities of combat, the challenging environment, and the initial lack of recognition faced by Vietnam veterans upon their return. He highlighted the significance of the Fall River Vietnam Memorial Wall as a place of remembrance and encouraged attendees to visit it and consider purchasing memorial bricks, with only 30 remaining at $150 each. Linda Pereira, City Council, also discussed ongoing efforts to support veterans, including securing Durfee High School diplomas for those who left school for service and exploring options for spouses to retain veteran license plates. A significant portion of the ceremony was dedicated to the presentation of Quilts of Valor by Rick and Karen Goddard. Five Vietnam veterans were honored with these quilts for their service: Attorney Joseph Macy, Sergeant Major Harry Therian, Joel Visco, Dr. Jack Sprague, and William Demaris. Vietnam lapel pins were also presented to these individuals, and posthumous recognition was given to Ronald G. Korea. The ceremony concluded with a plaque presentation to Bill Demaris for his dedicated service to veterans' organizations, a performance of "God Bless America" by Lindsay Aruda, a closing prayer by Reverend Andy Stinson, the playing of Taps, and a white dove release.
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1:23you could all remain standing for the opening prayer by the veterans war council chaplain mr edward bailey
1:47father god we come here today to ask your blessings upon the festivities that we're about to conduct here we ask you father to bless every one of the brother our brother and sister veterans here we ask that we all give thanks to any veteran you see because our freedom is not given to us we have to fight for that freedom and we should remember it so those that you do see thank them for it
2:18what do they thought at least they put their hand up and ask for the to help their country and keep them all in prayer and not too many of those are left in god's name we pray amen amen pledge of allegiance to the flag will be led by chaplain ed bailey the provost marshall al givens and the adjunct larry barola
2:59i pledge of allegiance and to the republic which stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all miss fall river lindsay aruna you can all take a seat miss fall river lindsay eruda will sing us the national anthem
3:39can you see by the dawn's early lot
4:25that our flag was still there oh say does that star spangled for the
4:54thank you that was beautiful
5:09it's always nice to thank it's always nice to thank people who come out and help us to celebrate the remembrance today for our vietnam veterans i'd like to acknowledge some people that are here the gold star families are represented the veterans organizations with their commander if you're here welcome civic organizations the battleship we have chris and tyrell the elected officials that are here
5:35state representative paul schmidt state representative alan silvia both who are veterans and state representative carol fiola who is always present at our veteran events also the past and present offices of the florida war veterans council the uh city's veterans service officer mikayla bruno is here along with her friend rabbit rabbit is also part of paul rivers vso so thank you all very much for being here
6:10retire colors the the next person to speak
6:25and thank you very much to the fargo police department fire department at ems for providing us with the honor gods the next individual to speak is mayor of the greatest city in my opinion in the commonwealth of massachusetts the city of fall river i humbly introduce you to my friend and colleague the honorable mayor paul coogan
6:56obviously following lindsay's great rendition of the national anthem is not the way to go but i'm extremely privileged to be here today to help celebrate vietnam veterans war and remembrance day obviously this was a time in our country that was very divisive but um the soldiers the sailors and all the people that supported the efforts during that war are the standouts that did what they
7:29were supposed to do to keep our country safe anybody that doesn't acknowledge that and realize that that's the most important piece to history when you look at the people that gave their lives their loves their friendships to go across the ocean to get into that battle to help the united states of america it makes the rest of us the dinner humbled to be around you and i really appreciate you all coming out today
7:58i want to salute everybody that put this together they did a great job setting it up especially the war council and of course city council linda pereira who always is out front fighting for the veterans so again thank you i hope you all enjoy the program and we appreciate it every time you come down to city hall again thanks
8:25i think we have to um thank all the different services that we have whether your army navy air force marines i'm a little bit partial to the navy because my dad served in world war ii in the navy and i met a lot of his friends as we'd go to the conventions so the stories that i heard um are not stories that you read in history books but when i look here today and i thank
8:53michelle hamilton and rolling thunder for bringing so many artifacts bill demaris and so many others who have artifacts to bring and if you just look at that cage and think that somebody is imprisoned and locked in that cage how horrifying that will be our next two speakers are both vietnam veteran vietnam era veterans which will speak with us as well sheriff hodgson and mrs hodgson there
9:21are seats right here for you and thank you for being here sheriff hodgson and mrs hodgson so the first the next person to speak who served in vietnam and he also happens to be uh the commander slash uh senior vice of the war veterans council i introduce you to robert bynum i mean robert guynan robert viner must be watching us from the bottom thank you linda
10:08my name is bob dyman i am the uh sitting commander of the florida secretary council i am also a vietnam that boots on the ground uh vietnam vet i want to on behalf of the law council veteran executive board and the members of the organization we want to express appreciation to all of you who are attending attending this event and a special presentation of appreciation to all veterans who served
10:46either in vietnam or those supporting the vietnam war whenever there's a veteran or a civilian of america taking time out of their busy lives and honor to remember the vietnam brothers and sisters means more than you can ever imagine to us many of the residents served at the same time as i did in vietnam men like gilbert cavallo who served and his daughter brenda we just stand up brother and let the people see you um
11:32gill was killed in action in vietnam then of course was harry our main speaker who was in uh bill clark damaris who also served with me in the same area that we were actually in vietnam the vietnam war is an organ the vietnam council is an organization that many of the members have served in vietnam i'm very grateful that i was able to return home from vietnam and i am very proud today
12:05to be the commander of the florida world veterans council and many of the veterans organizations but i am most proud of the city and for the always represent and treat the veterans including vietnam veterans involved with respect um there's a there's never been an event or a fundraiser that i've attended that uh mayor paul coogan has been there and we really appreciate the work that he's done for our veterans and
12:44you'll be in here today let's everyone know that the citizens of florida remember our vietnam veterans as as time today as remember the vietnam veterans please keep your plw and maa veterans uh in your thoughts and in your prayers on behalf of all the vietnam veterans again thank you for uh for caring enough to remember us uh god bless the vietnam veterans and their families god bless all of you and
13:16god bless four river in the united states of america thank you our next speaker was also a former commander of the law veterans council lenny tavares thank you linda i speak on behalf of a vietnam era i did not serve in vietnam i joined right after high school which made my father uh very proud since he served in world war ii my mother not so happy but that's a story for another time we took
14:08all took the oath to serve the country and to go wherever they sent us which when you join you don't know where you're going or who you're going to be with and as a vietnam era veteran i am very proud to say that i have a lot of friends who served in vietnam and i wish them all well i wish all of you all well god bless you and i just want to mention that
14:44i'd like to thank the veterans kitchen they are supplying the uh lunch this afternoon and also tomorrow at 11 o'clock they've got lasagna over at the cocky row club okay we thank you god bless you god bless fall river and god bless the united states of america and also keep keep the ukrainian people in your prayers i had the honor for the past i don't know it took us what two and a half years three years
15:32four years four years wow time flies uh but i had the honor of serving on the vietnam memorial wall committee and there are several members of that wall committee here today if they could stand our chairman joe marshall ray hague attorney joe macy dr jack
16:07a special treat harry therian also um served with us um and that's where i really got to know harry i knew his wife before i knew harry and then actually i married harry and his wife so i guess i knew them both but serving with him and listening to all that he had to say uh was very impressive to me and he would go often to see brian fox when they we did the beautiful rendering
16:39um to give tips on everything so that brian would have every single detail so they they kindled the friendship as well but i will tell you our guest speaker is highly decorated he has two purple hearts he's a vietnam combat war veteran and i give him so many thanks and the highest respect for his service i proudly introduce you to sergeant major harry therian
17:22uh
17:41whatever you say sergeant i'm not so sure i need this thing everybody hear me okay i'll speak a little louder if you need me to but uh mayor coogan sheriff fire chief joe or bob it's uh quite an honor to be here to uh spend some time with you and talk about some things perhaps bring back a lot of memories for all of us when bill damaris called me last week
18:17and asked me if i would come over here and do this i was uh somewhat somewhat hesitant you know i the first couple of seconds i said what do you say to a group of veterans like yourselves many of whom have served in vietnam your families that you haven't already heard before i can't stand here and speak to you about duty honor commitment self-sacrifice all those things that you've heard over the years you know you
18:50you lived those things you just by you being here today tells me that you still live up to those standards and i appreciate you i appreciate all of you being here bill has a tendency to beg me to wear this uniform so you know if if you're a former marine you know that this thing fits tighter than a glove and it's not very good especially up here so if i stutter a little bit and mumble and
19:24cough it's it's the the choking that's taking place so i always thank phil though it kind of when i put this uniform on it kind of rekindles a spark of great pride so i uh a little bit about myself i retired 30 years ago i left high school joined the marine corps 17 like many of you i served 27 years could have served 30 but they wouldn't let me go to the persian gulf so i said
19:59i'm leaving you know having the privilege i served two tours in vietnam so i was able to see two types of service in vietnam if you will today we we celebrate the remembrance of the vietnam veteran not the vietnam war you know you've heard slogan recently separate the warrior from the war and that's what we've tried to do most recently but it's been a long time coming recognition of vietnam veterans i uh
20:48know the last several years you if you wear a an article of clothing uh perhaps a hat sweatshirt a t-shirt that has some form of military affiliation people tend to make small talk they thank you for your service vietnam veterans it took four decades to get to that point really 40 years you know initially like some of you older guys they say thank you for your service and you say to yourself
21:28you know too little too late but uh as time goes by the more you hear it from people the more you appreciate it and i appreciate it it took a long time you know back in the 60s and 70s as you all know america was in turmoil he had a lot of demonstrations against the war some peaceful some not so peaceful unfortunately race riots were running rampant terrible looting started destruction of property
22:10initially people supported the vietnam war but as time went by they decided to despise it they hated the vietnam war when you see you know we had a chance to to see the war on tv every night you know with walter cronkite dan rather showing pictures of marines and soldiers in combat navy down in the recon delta families didn't like seeing them you know their sons were there their husbands were their
22:44daughters were there they became to get angry over the war for those of you like myself you remember lieutenant cali in the milite massacre where innocent women and children were killed the picture of that fire the police chief he was a general i think but shooting a suspected vietcong person in the head on the streets of saigon america decided to take that anger and direct it towards us you know we who served
23:31we certainly didn't start the war as the old adage nobody likes to fight a war because somebody has to and that's where we came in young 17 18 19 20 year old men and women i can remember a time in rhode island after my first tour when i came back luckily enough i was able to get stationed at quantum point rhode island at the marine barracks and i came back in may of 68.
24:02it's a i can remember the vfw even the american legion didn't recognize vietnam veterans young men and women coming back from vietnam had a hard time with the veterans administration trying to get benefits up until about 1985 when they built the wall in dc is when we started getting some recognition things got a little better you know for all of us when i came back for my first tour uh vietnam i remember being
24:39in anchorage alaska marines used to go through okinawa you pick up your uniforms that you left there a year before which i might have is very proficient they would get your uniforms just stay in okinawa for a few days get out of plane by home and i was sitting in the airport in anchorage alaska i think it was a little over two o'clock in the morning but it it looked like two o'clock in the
25:04afternoon and i've never seen that in my life before it's kind of weird it was still light up uh but sitting there uh in my uniform you know you you put your vietnam ribbons you feel proud and this lady walked up to me looked like an elderly lady but you know when you're 19 everybody looks old but uh she walked up to me and kept her distance and i remember this like it was yesterday she
25:37she said did you serve in vietnam of course the beam of pride i said yes ma'am i did and she shook her head and turned around and walked away and you know at the time i figured you know what the hell was that i figured maybe she didn't like marines maybe she didn't like service members i never even thought about vietnam and of course when i got home you know the family greets you and
26:10everything is fine and wonderful and i started watching the news i started getting some indications as to why people weren't happy with vietnam or vietnam veterans so it was a long time coming as i say but uh i read years ago that at the time there were about 540 000 troops in vietnam only about 20 percent actually served in direct combat at the enemy so there are a lot of people in support of that 20 percent
26:52the average age of the vietnam service person was 19.5 years i had told brian fox sometimes like you know kids with guns that's the way i looked at it you're playing colloids and indians for real i think over two million four hundred thousand people served india down boots on the ground right now there's a little over 800 000 of us left it's about 30 so you in this room are part of that 30
27:32that are still alive and well and you're talking about it and can share your thoughts and feelings with future generations as i said having served two toys i was lucky enough to see both types of i wouldn't say lucky look he's a very good word that had the opportunity to to see both sides on my first tour i served with the ninth marines along the militarized zone the dmz which
28:02we came to call the dead marine town was names like geolin vandegriff camp carroll khe-san those names that you hear about over the years a rear area was in gang ha i believe bill demaris was served in donghae i can't speak about other services but in the marine corps from the air base at the name to the dmz i-corps area we called it there's a little part called leatherneck square leathernecks being a term for
28:47marines but there really was no safe area even in the rear areas where you were subject to rocket attacks artillery mortars vietcong or the nba would probe your lines at night check your security positions and so on so there really was no safe areas of course you have big installations like cameron bay saigon and so forth but my first tour was easy uh you know as far as i'm concerned it was a brotherhood you know we
29:25protected each other like many of you there was no racial discrimination we were brothers in arms my second toe is quite easy i served with the first mp battalion at the air base in dunang we had a platoon of marines who were attached to the army's 504th in peopletown the army's battalion used to run the stockade and whether he knew it or not there were many many american prisoners in penang in stockade for various
30:03reasons murders a lot of black market stuff but there are a lot of american military in the socket the marines guarded the vietnamese prisoners of war and we're also responsible if you can imagine for the defense of those prisoners of poor so it was an easy tour we had three hot meals a day you know hot showers when you wanted it you'd get a haircut barbershop px there was even a club down the street
30:42for those of you who remember you could get two beers a day that was your daily ration so of course we all ran down to the club each day to get our rash into two beers the villagers were friendly and you didn't have to worry about snipers once in a while you get some rockets or artillery or some mortifier but it was pretty safe on my second tour i never had the opportunity to fire my weapon
31:12if you can think about that and combat something vietnam veterans you know have a tendency not to speak about the war they don't like talking about the war and i always felt that there was no eloquent way to talk about violent combat and that's why we don't talk about the war but there are a lot of things that many of you will remember things that stay with you for a lifetime they have with me so
31:55bill damaris asked me if i could you know go over some of those things just to kind of reflect and bring back some more memories for those of you who may have served in combat every war since the revolutionary war has its own particularities or its own characteristics and vietnam was no different besides combat you had to deal with several other forces at hand first of all the environment
32:32the thick jungles covered with briar elephant grass where if you didn't protect yourself would cut your skin like a razor blade there was no way you could go on combat patrol without making a hell of a lot of noise with machetes chopping your way through switching the point man on and off because it was so exhausting the rivers and streams if you recall were full of leeches snakes
33:09cross a river you'd have to pause on the other side take a few moments to pull the leeches off or maybe burn them off with cigarettes or spray them with the old nasty bug juice they used to give us in that little green bottle in the mountains during the monsoon if you're up in the highlands the overcast would come down so low that you couldn't see 10 feet in front of your position
33:38of course you had to deal with mother nature the weather you all know the weather in vietnam between may and september it was hot you know average temperature was about 95.
33:50a lot of times it get into the hundreds you know some people used to say 120 in the shade but you had to constantly worry about sunburn constantly swaying if you remember the mosquitoes the size of small aircraft heading towards your eyes the gnats and the ears constantly and like i say that that nasty little bug juice i think it was deep but it was about 30 alcohol you could actually burn rust off chrome
34:23but it didn't do anything for the bugs we used to write home all the time and tell our parents send us some bug juice you know spray and make sure it's unscented you resorted to wearing less clothing if you remember it was boots trousers flak jacket a helmet sometimes you wore a t-shirt but you got rid of the socks you got rid of the underwear you didn't need that stuff it's too hot
34:57and winter time and i never knew this but up in the highlands and winter during the monsoon uh i had read that the temperatures would drop sometimes to the 50s and 60s so it got cold you go from 95 to 60 65.
35:15it got very cold one day would be beautiful and if you remember it began to get a little cloudy the sky opened up and it rained for three months straight if you could get a day or two in between to try to dry out your unicorns you were lucky most of the marines i knew and a lot of you army guys you know trench foot was common you get to a point where
35:49the skin would peel off your feet between the toes powders didn't work i know marines in uh up north even get vaseline from home and put vaseline all over our feet try to keep the moisture off wet socks just made it worse you're constantly wet shivering and during all of that you lived in a hole for a year in the ground with us moving from firebase to firebase you were lucky if your squad moved into
36:37a position where you might run into a rat infested bunker if you lived in a bunker you had to share with the rats and if you recall they were about this big and they were fat otherwise you find yourself another hole or you dig a new one but that's how you live for a year during the monsoon every morning you get up you take off your helmet and you start bailing the water out of
37:07that fighting home or if you were lucky you had a big coffee pan that you souvenired from the trash it's one thing i remember too and many of you might recall you know you sit in that fighting hole at night during the monsoons and you know you may get a little sleep but in the morning at dawn you wake up in the water i guess from your body heat but that water would warm
37:40up as it rose and you'd be chest deep in warm water and you hated to get up because you knew you were going to start shivering but uh i always say it kind of reminded me or it could be reminded of a baby in a womb that was sitting there but how about the sea rations those things are nasty too uh you get cans ham and lima beans we used to call it something else but
38:20those of you who recall the name ham and eggs in a little can if you took it out of the can you could probably play hockey with the thing they had spaghetti and meatballs it was so so compressed in the can you have to use a bayonet to cut it out and they used to give you those little heat tabs remember to heat up those cans i think i always thought that uh
38:48the higher echelon used to used to take all those little heat tabs i have here with sauron so we resorted to using c4 explosives we'll take a little take a little c4 and make a ball out of it stick it in your little can stove you light it up and it just poof you got like tons of heat you would eat up those cans of food in seconds in those little packets
39:16remember the dry cream hot as a rock they had nasty old dried coffee cigarettes you get a little pack of cigarettes with maybe three or four cigarettes and they were all the worst cigarettes camels lucky chesterfield sale yeah if you're lucky the local populace you have to deal with them as well you know whether you work down south that you worked up north you couldn't trust anybody in vietnam not even the children
39:52they were farmers by day soldiers by night and you hear gruesome stories about children walking up to groups of marines or soldiers drop a hand grenade and run like that so a lot of those things could bring back memories but you always constantly on the alert if you were back in the rear they were days of boredom until the rockets started to come in and you hear gunfire and your adrenaline kicked in and you
40:31grabbed your weapon and as much ammo as you could and you ran out to the lines to see what the hell was going on remember the rockets build the barracks to tell you those those rockets came in sounding like freight trains until they hit the ground the ground would shake and trap it would fly for 100 feet direct hits on bunkers totally destroy the bunker and any marine that was inside
41:06artillery would whistle if you remember all you heard was that and then it would explode while you're sitting in your defensive position you hear that familiar sound and you knew that was enemy motor fire coming in somebody yelled incoming and everybody runs for the closest hole never knowing where those rounds were going to hit you were constantly exhausted lack of sleep you run combat patrols ambushes
41:46if you were lucky you slept four five hours a day if you weren't on watch during the day you were packing sandbags for protection you could fall asleep in seconds personal hygiene was always a challenge if you were out in combat you maybe took a hot shower once every three or four months the best you could do is uh bathe as best you can try to shave whenever you got a chance or have some other
42:22marina soldier give you a quick haircut with some scissors or maybe a shop bayonet above all some of the things that uh sticks most clearly in my mind up north those fire bases i know the first time we in the ninth reigns moved up there it was the smell the stench of those combat pieces between the mix of gunpowder outdoor latrines feces burning with diesel fuel trash mud decaying rats leftover body parts
43:20and then you stick a thousand men in there who haven't showered for three months it can get kind of nasty but that smell that always always stayed with me so the slogan today is separate the warrior from the war as vietnam veterans in that vietnam war so as it was said you know give give all veterans some respect you know you gave of yourself as a young man or woman you served with honor
44:05you answered the call to duty like i said we didn't start the war but we were told to go fight it we went and we did our best but never forget over 58 000 men and women made the ultimate sacrifice and if you've never been to the wall down here in fall river you know you should go if you've been there go again it's a beautiful place to visit a lot of monuments down there it's peaceful
44:45a little windy sometimes but on a nice day it's a nice place to spend a couple of hours go reminisce pay some homage think about those folks on the wall maybe find a an old friend a familiar name but finally again uh you know this is it's been a privilege for me you know several folks will tell you uh brian he'll tell you i don't like to talk about that now but
45:24today is the day to do that it's a day to remember uh finally you know with every show there was a commercial so i've been asked to remind all of you if you haven't done so there's about 30 bricks that are left available for your name your service the dates that you served you can get the form the veteran's office bring a nice fat check for 150 make sure you have a copy of your dd214 and
46:09buy one of those bricks there's only 30 left it'd be something good for your family something that's going to last for a long time that wall is going to be down there forever and those pavers will be so thank you for your attention i i didn't bore you and thank you all for coming true boy that's a little tough to hear and as i sitting back here could see all of the faces in the audience
47:08to see some of our veterans nodding their heads remembering tearing up think about all they did and came back and were treated so poorly and that's one of the big reasons why we wanted to do the vietnam memorial wall here because fall river loves veterans and we take care of our veterans and you know it's just an idea somebody has we got the wall because ray hague who was our vso before read about the opportunity to
47:38get the wall talk to the mayor and then got a committee together so he joe marshall was one of the committee members and there's no one better than joe to chair a committee and get a bunch of people in and make sure that we're all working and doing what we need to do so if it wasn't for the two of them starting this that wall wouldn't have been here i heard um major sergeant sergeant major
48:04therian just now talk about going into the war at the age of 17.
48:09you know that there's a law and i've been working with the mayor and the city administrator who also happens to be a marine uh city administrator seth akins is a marine too i think a captain um but if you left high school because you had to go to war you were drafted or you enlisted maybe you came back and you got your ged but if you live in fall river you are entitled to a
48:34durfee high school diploma so we're working on that so anybody who had to leave didn't finish get in touch with me and then there's things we look at i know repfiol is looking into it if a veteran passes away male or female that their spouse will still be able to have their plate so there's always things that we work on i'm the government liaison to the war council so whenever somebody gives me an idea we
49:00look into it we can do it we do if we can't we can't but our motto is we try and we try to make sure that we do whatever we can for our veterans and there's a lot of groups that recognize veterans there's the quilts of valor group and karen goddard is here today with her lovely husband who will come and give you um a little explanation about the quilts of
49:25valor and this year they're going to be presented to some of the members of the vietnam memorial wall that served in vietnam and that would be harry therian dr jack sprague attorney joe macy joe bisco and bill damaris they'll be getting an award this year for that so mr goddard if you could come up who thank you
49:55with the sergeant major i don't need
50:05good afternoon first like to thank all of you for coming here today it's an amazing thing to see the support that veterans especially combat veterans still receive thanks for having me here today and my lovely wife karen my name is rick goddard i am a patriot at heart and i served in the us army as a north vietnamese linguist non-combatant for one year by profession i'm a retired firefighter
50:45my wife cameron and i are very pleased to be here today for this presentation this sir it is her pleasure as it is mine to be here to present these roles karen is a cult of my passion and we're here today representing the south coast of massachusetts today we have two separate parts two separate presentations one is the quotes of vala the other is a vietnam lapel pin which is another ceremony
51:19about the quotes of valor that begin in 2003 by katherine roberts with a few quilts awarded and now has grown 2022 to 298 930 recipients of these quilts catherine had the idea when arizona was being deployed she wanted his return that of the returning troops would be mocked with something other than a ribbon or a pin or depending on the uniform or a plaque to hang on the wall she combined her love of quilting and
51:59connected with the long round quilters to crea to create quilts of valor what started as a local effort in a living room in seaford maryland spread into a national organization the mission of the quotes of valor was to cover service members and veterans touched by war with comforting and healing cults of valor each quill is designed and stitched with love healing thoughts and prayers
52:30these are a once-in-a-lifetime award registered through the national cemetery of course they're never sold nor raffled they're meant to represent a tangible acknowledgement of this service sacrifice and valor the foundation's original focus was on young service members wounded in operation iraqi freedom in operation enduring freedom catherine roberts recalls the light inclusiveness she explained while at the vietnam
53:06memorial traveling wall in 2009.
53:10her group had planned to award quilts to oif and oef veterans but none were present but the patriot riders were able to ride pat we're going to ride past the wall in the motorcycles they would receive the quotes that day catherine will never forget the words vietnam veterans spoke ma'am there is a this is the first time in 40 years and anyone ever thank me for my service from that day forward any service member
53:51touched by war no matter what his or her service was receive a quote of valor we could never understand what being touched by war means each veteran it is different for each person depending upon where they and when they serve well this is a general in washington that the pentagon an infantry soldier a nurse a doctor a combat veteran serving in the war zone each has been effective affected differently
54:29as we award these quotes today let us do so with respect i know that these veterans have indeed been touched by war we have five distinguished recipients today what we'd like to do is hold your applause to the end of the first presentations when five are done we'll rip it up okay now anybody wants to take a picture of your husband or whatever your boyfriend whatever it may be come up and take a picture
55:02it's something you're gonna last forever
55:15thank you okay vietnam war committee members would attorney joseph macy please come forward u.s army first lieutenant 1968 1971 mekong delta 1978 assigned to macbee intelligence office
56:00do you need joe and ray to help hold that tell me what to do she wants to know if she can give you a hug now yeah okay first time thank you
56:25attorney harry taryn oh harry united states marine corps sergeant major 1965 to 1992 kantian kwang tree province 1967 1970 infantry drill instructor and more yeah thank you for wrapping his grandbabies in that like there you go nice absolutely joel visco
57:15fourth class 1965 1968.
57:18kn 1966 1967 196th infantry brigade yes you get ready
57:38dr jack braga united states air force captain 1963 1968 constant old air base 1965 1968 c-130 pilot and then he was president of our college
58:19william demaris
58:28usm united states marine corps sergeant 1968 to 1970 dongha kwong tree 1968 1969 communication sheet
58:59okay so that the message is a grateful nation thanks and honors you this pin on one side is the american eagle on the other side is this statement next is harry taran usmc and the wearer wears it close to their heart
59:52joe disco thank you inside inside that packet are some little pins for your family too thank you you're welcome and dr jacksberger
1:00:34okay william damaris
1:00:48on behalf of a grateful nation thank you for your service i would be blessed if i didn't
1:01:02say this today if i did not mention there's one more vietnam grant here's the special forces five 1961-1962 assigned to mack v five unit he was going to receive a quota vela today but he passed away october 21st 2021 his name was ronald g korea thank you there are many people who help us whenever we do veterans events and one of those such individuals is a veteran himself
1:01:49he has no idea that we have this for him but he will also be doing our closing prayer later the reverend andy stinson
1:02:05and the war veterans council has asked me to present this this plaque and this individual has no idea that we have a plaque but if bill demaris could come up here it it's in grateful appreciation for your continued commitment and years and i can verify years of dedicated service to countless veterans organizations in the greater fall river area presented by the war veterans council on this date march 29 2022.
1:02:54from all of us a big thank you brother and sister veterans in the four war veterans council which is comprised of many many uh units from the marine corps league the american legion vfw so many um they're my brothers truly and honestly and we all help each other through the tough times we'll always stick together no matter what and i thank people forever for all recognizing our veterans
1:03:29thank you for this thank you very much i wish that we had a plaque for his wife because his wife paula doesn't
1:03:57by reverend andy stinson oh i'm sorry before you know what thank god reverend andy is here i love him to pieces but before we do that um why don't we have our wonderful miss ball river lindsey singing the nasty god bless america sing along with her if you choose
1:04:34stand beside me from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans
1:04:59my see
1:05:23now we'll hear from reverend andy smitson i invite you to join me in prayer lord of the most high on this honored day when the last of the 2.4 million american combat troops stepped from the red orange soil and out of the jungle of vietnam we ask that you make holy all that has been proclaimed here this day these many years later we have lifted high the sacrifices we have honored the
1:06:00losses we have sought our forgivenesses we have praised the service well given and we've called on you for the healing that only you can grant from war let every vietnam veteran lift it up here today and the high courage and service and strength they have embodied whether they dwell in this world or in the next receive the blessing of good and faithful service and give them a place earned amongst the warriors of old
1:06:28to all we declare this day and we beseech you o god to grant to those who from fall river and every corner of this country who left their home in service for their nation we declare welcome home in the name of all that is holy we pray amen you can all have a seat um now we will have the playing of taps and they will uh do a white dove release
1:07:03a few people will go outside to do the white dub release right here yep
1:07:14okay guys one more time yes
1:08:10one two three