VA thanks Vietnam War veterans
BUTLER TWP — Don Hayes of Butler received a much warmer welcome Friday at VA Butler Healthcare than he did when he returned from Vietnam in 1970.
Hayes and other military veterans who served during the Vietnam War era from Nov. 1, 1955, to May 15, 1975, were invited to receive Vietnam War veteran lapel pins and “pocket” flags that once decorated veterans’ graves at North Cemetery in Butler and enjoy a danish and coffee.
Following a medical appointment at the VA, Hayes had the pin placed on his jacket by Diana Grady, past regent and state veterans committee chairman for the General Richard Butler Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.
Hayes said he saw combat all over Cambodia from 1969 to 1970 as a sergeant in the 155th Air Mobile Artillery unit.
“We arrived in San Francisco (Calif.) at 2 a.m. They shipped us out at 5 a.m. to avoid the protesters,” Hayes said. “We came in the middle of the night and they shuffled us out.”
A chilly reception from some people awaited him when he got back home to Butler.
He said he had a job galvanizing steel at Armco before he left to serve the country, but was offered a job as a laborer when he returned.
“It wasn’t the company’s fault. One guy did it. Certain people in certain positions, not everybody,” he said.
After talking with a manager, he said he got his job back.
Then he went to a bank for a loan to buy his dad’s house but was turned down.
“We don’t lend you people money,” Hayes recalls being told by the bank. “That’s just the way it was. The VA wouldn’t even recognize us.”
Joe Lofton, of Slippery Rock, served 29 years in the Army beginning in 1968 and ascended to the rank of chief warrant officer. His pin was placed on his jacket by Donna Croft, regent and VA voluntary service representative for the General Richard Butler Chapter of the NSDAR.
“This is a national initiative to reach all Vietnam veterans to thank them for their service,” Grady said. “This is a welcome home pin because they didn’t receive the proper welcome home when they came back.”
A spouse’s pin was presented to spouses of veterans who served in Vietnam.
Martha Eberhardt, a past regent of the General Richard Butler Chapter of the NSDAR, said the chapter placed small flags on the graves of 1,000 veterans in North Cemetery before collaborating with Wreaths Across America to place wreaths on the graves in an elaborate ceremony every December involving each branch of the military, many veterans’ organizations, ROTC units and Boy Scouts.
Eventually, the flags are respectfully retrieved, cleaned, folded and given to veterans, she said.
“Each pocket flag was at a veterans’ grave at North Cemetery,” Eberhardt said.
VA Butler Healthcare keeps a store of the Vietnam pins to present them to veterans when opportunities arise, said Paula McCarl, public affairs officer. They are intended to be pinned on veterans’ lapels by someone as an expression of gratitude.
“The premise is to personally thank them and present them with the pin,” McCarl said.
