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Parkersburg ceremony unveils Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Memorial

By Douglass Huxley 4 min read

PARKERSBURG -- People gathered at the National Guard Armory in south Parkersburg Friday for a Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Ceremony.

"This country would not be what it is today without each and every one of you," Dwight Ullman, general manager of Sunset Funeral Home and Memory Gardens, said. "And today we're going to unveil the Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Memorial."

The memorial will be placed beside the Purple Heart Memorial at the Sunset Memory Gardens Cemetery, the only Purple Heart cemetery in the state of West Virginia and the Mid-Ohio Valley.

"It's an honor for my employees and myself to be able to do this for all of you," Ullman said.

Assistant Adjutant General of the West Virginia Army National Guard and Army Brigadier General Murray E. Holt spoke to the crowd gathered in the armory and thanked all the Vietnam veterans and their families for their service.

"Regardless of your branch of service, regardless of where you served, and how you served, you served," Holt said. "And we all owe you a debt of gratitude."

Holt said more than 36,000 West Virginians answered the call for service during the Vietnam War and 1,182 gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

"We are proud of your service, and of the nine Medal of Honor recipients from the Vietnam era," Holt said.

He told the crowd he gets to meet every one of the National Guard recruits after they return from boot camp and they all have a strong sense of service and duty.

"And that comes from you," Holt said. "I think we can be proud of our youth. And we can be proud that they want to serve their country and their state. And let me tell you that they're doing it with honor and distinction."

Keynote speaker Ron Wroblewski, president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Tri-State Chapter 949, spoke to the crowd about his time spent in Vietnam as a radio operator.

"I can tell you that I will never forget the sound of an AK-47 rifle," Wroblewski said. "The first time I heard that sound, a young hero died."

He talked about the heat they had to endure with booby traps, spider holes (a type of camouflaged one-man foxhole), snakes, tigers and many other unseen fears.

"And rats that would pull your hair out or bite you, as big as cats," Wroblewski said.

He talked about the monsoon season where it would rain for 50 to 60 days straight. He said his clothes were wet, his feet were wet, his spirit was wet and they would walk all day searching for the enemy. He then talked about the chaos that followed once the enemy was found.

"Explosions all around. Bullets flying in all directions in a firefight. At night you could see the tracer rounds light up the sky," Wroblewski said. "Like shooting stars bullets flew and grenades full of shrapnel like bees made of hot steel seeking to penetrate your body."

He said once or twice a month they would get some time away from the jungle. He said sometimes you could get a shower, hot meals, clean clothes and hope. Then it was back out into the bush.

Wroblewski talked about how soldiers came back from Vietnam with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and complications from Agent Orange only to be treated like "street scum" by U.S. citizens and the VA Hospital. He said the Va Hospital has gotten much better since then and he can't thank them enough for what they do.

"I'm glad the kids who sacrificed their lives didn't have to experience that reception back into the world," Wroblewski said. "So think twice before you ask a war veteran, 'What was it like over there?' You might get more than you expected, and more than you wanted to hear."

Douglass Huxley can be reached at dhuxley@newsandsentinel.com

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