The Vietnam War, which raged through Southeast Asia from November 1955 to April 1975, claimed the lives of more than 58,000 Americans, including more than 47,000 who died in combat.
Of those, 21 were from the greater Hattiesburg area.
On March 29 – Good Friday – officials from the City of Hattiesburg paid honor to those individuals on the 50th anniversary of the end of that war, with the second annual Vietnam War Veterans Day ceremony held at Veterans Memorial Park in downtown Hattiesburg.
“Given the conflict they’re engaged in, we owe it to people who are fighting to honor them, thank them and support them, and I’m glad we’re doing this now,” Mayor Toby Barker said. “(These are people who are) willing to give everything for the cause of freedom and its ideals, and for the sake of others.
“We say thank you to those who served in Vietnam, and we recognize that our thanks for their sacrifice came a little late for a few of them. And this a lesson that we will impart on on our children and our children’s children – regardless of the politics of day, regardless of what unrest accompanies a conflict, whenever our men and women are called to fight, we owe them our gratitude and support.”
Wyn Mims, who serves as principal at Petal High School, began the program by singing the National Anthem, which was followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and an invocation. Members of the Hattiesburg Veterans Committee then placed a memorial wreath at the park’s Vietnam pillar.
The names of the 21 Hattiesburg-area Vietnam veterans who lost their lives in the conflict were then read out loud. Those names are etched into one of the park’s pillars as part of the 173 Hattiesburg-area veterans who have lost their lives in war since World War I.
The names from Vietnam include Elijah W. Burkett, Johnny R. Burton, Eugene J. Conner, Paul M. Douglas, Samuel A. Grayson, Brice Keene, Melvin S. Lamar, Edward E. McBride, Oliver W. Myers, Thomas D. Ott II, James H. Overstreet, Dennis L. Roads, Henry E. Santee, James W. Sizemore, Alford D. Smith Jr., Jesse L. Smith, Roger D. Sumrall, John D. Anderson, Donald E. Woolbright, Cecil D. Breland and Lee D. Stuart Jr.
“The fact that we do this and that we remember them, and continue to do that – that’s what it’s all about,” said Ted Tibbett, chairman of the Hattiesburg Veterans Committee. “We’re all brothers and sisters in this – we call ourselves comrades and we call ourselves brothers and sisters (because) we’ve been down a road that a lot of people haven’t been.
“You can have two million dollars and join the Augusta Country Club, but you can’t become a veteran without serving. When you serve your country, it gives you pride. Nobody wants war … but sometimes you have no choice, so those who serve, we like to remember our service and think that we did something good for our country.”
The event concluded with the playing of “Taps” on bugle by veteran Purvis Howell.
The ceremony is special to veterans like Dennis Lyon, who served as a staff sergeant in the military police corps during the Vietnam War.
“It’s just the honor of being recognized and respected by my fellow soldiers,” Lyon said. “It’s an honorable thing.
“It pumps me up and gives me a new respect for my fellow veterans, and other people and civilians who come out and honor us for the duties we performed. It gives the recognition that we didn’t get when we came home initially.”
National Vietnam War Veterans Day was established via the Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act of 2017, which designates every March 29 as the date for that day. March 29, 1973 was the day United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam was disestablished, and also the day the last U.S. combat troops departed Vietnam.
