30-03-2025
Veterans gather on USS Hornet in Alameda for National Vietnam War Veterans Day
This year marks 50 years since the fall of Saigon after the U.S. withdrew its troops from the Vietnam War.
On Saturday, those who fought in that conflict gathered at the USS Hornet in Alameda for a ceremony marking National Vietnam War Veterans Day and they reflected on what lessons may have been learned or forgotten.
Climbing the gangplank to the USS Hornet is like an ascent to the past. But it was a troubled past that was remembered on Saturday.
The Vietnam War began as a struggle to prevent the spread of communism but soon lost its way, along with a lot of young American soldiers.
Joe LoParo, president of the Vietnam Veterans, Alameda Chapter, spoke for them.
"We lost 58,000 in Vietnam. And we've lost by count of the government, probably another 300,000 due to Agent Orange. And we lose approximately 22 veterans a day to suicide," he said, his voice cracking with emotion. "Be the kind of American that is worth dying for because those men, they deserve it."
Darren Walton was the keynote speaker, but he was a young Marine Recon Ranger in 1969.
He served many harrowing missions and after the war, with the nation turning against its own warriors, he had trouble adjusting and wrote a book about his experience, partly to explain what happened, but also to try to make sense of it in his own mind.
"I'm not against war," said Walton. "But I haven't seen a just war since I came back from Vietnam."
But even unjust actions can sometimes have positive outcomes.
Phong La is Alameda County's Tax Assessor. As a young child, his family fled Vietnam in a fishing boat, but he made a life here, thanks to the generosity of government services offered to refugees. He said that's why he sees the current anti-immigrant campaign as misguided.
"I've come to accept and realize that we're not a perfect country. We're absolutely not," he told the audience. "We will make mistakes from time to time. As citizens, it is our duty and our right to correct our country when we do feel that we're making a mistake. America's the greatest country in the world, not because of who we exclude, but because of who we include in our land. There's those that we allow to come here, like myself, that work very hard to ensure that what we fight for, what we strive for, what we represent, is true to our beliefs. That freedom that we have comes from all of you, from your service to us. It also comes from all of us, in ensuring that we have the government that we want."
There are also efforts underway by DOGE to cut 80,000 employees from the Veteran's Administration, the source of medical and mental health benefits that so many aging Vietnam vets rely on.
"It's very difficult to do the outreach that we need to do and reach all of these men, when only one in five of these men have been shown to be contacted by the VA," said LoParo.
But in the audience was Roy Swicegood, a Vietnam vet and Trump supporter from Union City. He said he simply doesn't believe the proposed cuts are real.
"No, I don't think that's going to happen at all because I think President Trump has our back," said Swicegood. "I don't think it's going to happen at all. In fact, I am 100 percent disabled, and I received my check for April already. I don't think it's going to happen. I think that's propaganda. I think that's people talking out of school."
The fall of Saigon occurred on April 30, 1975. Just like in Vietnam, it's sometimes hard for veterans--and the country--to understand what's really going on. And even harder to know, for sure, how it's all going to turn out.
