2012 Veteran's Day - Welcome Home to the Viet Nam Vets!

Today we attended a veterans day program that was geared toward welcoming home Vietnam Vets specifically.  The pictures were taken with the phone so they didn't come out well, but the top one is a marine honor guard.  The middle pic is of Major General James E. Livingston, a Georgia native, and the holder of the congressional medal of honor, the silver star, the bronze star with combat "v" & 3 purple hearts.   As a young captain he earned the medal of honor under some fierce combat conditions.  He was also the officer in charge of the day that the US left Vietnam.  His speech was right to the point when he spoke of the media of the day & the poor civilian leadership in Washington for the reasons that we left how we did.  Needless to say he was continually appauled thoughout his comments.  He was told in later years by the Vietanmese General that had the US continued to bomb Hanoi for even 2 more days they were ready to surrender, but we stopped bombing, basically because of politcal reasons of LBJ.  The lower pic was all the vietnam vets that were there were asked to come to the front of the room to be recognized and for the reading of the names of the 21 Georgia servicemen killed in Vietnam.  Quite a moving cermony.