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This weekend marks the 5th annual “Welcome Home Vietnam Veteran’s Day” in Las Cruces, and the anniversary is being recognized with a new monument in Veteran’s Park.
Bruce Fonnest, President of the Vietnam Veteran’s of America in Las Cruces says the new monument and ceremonies that take place on “Welcome Home Vietnam Veteran’s Day” honor those who were forgotten when they first came home.
“This is a monument honoring those who served in the Vietnam War,” Fonnest said. “It’s not honoring the war, it’s the ones who served that never got no credit for it, or thank you, or anything else for the time they served their government.”
The new monument, which is almost completed, will honor all 7 branches of the Military and their involvement in Vietnam.
“And it’s going to show a little timeline of what that branch did in Vietnam with some pictures of what they did over there,” Fonnest said. “But the main portion is the dead center of it, where it is going to have the name, photo, and city of all 398 New Mexico Vietnam Veterans that were killed in Vietnam.”
The names of those 398 veterans will be read in a ceremony at the monument’s opening. Fonnest says there will also be opportunities for all veterans to learn about different services available for them.
“We are going to have a lot of different veteran’s organizations set up here on Saturday,” Fonnest said. “So the veteran’s can get information, and the VA is gonna be here. So, there is going to be a lot of stuff out here where these guys can go talk to somebody and get some information on how they can get help if they wanted.”
Fonnest says he did not have the same experience as many when he came home from Vietnam, but says it is important to recognize them today because they weren’t in the past.
“I spent 20 years in the military,” Fonnest said. “So, I didn’t have a lot like these guys that came back and they got out, and they went into civilian life. I spent 20 years in the military so my experience was a lot different then some of these guy’s here. I know I talked to some, and they say they’ve gone into airports and been spit on and everything else. I don’t know what I would have done if that would have been me. That personally never happened to me, so that’s why I’m trying to give what I can back to these guys here and tell them thank you and welcome home.”
He says he’s glad the public’s perception has changed with military members returning home.
“I’m just glad not they’re not treating these soldiers coming back from Afghanistan the way they treated the Vietnam Veterans,” Fonnest said. “There was not fanfare like they’re doing these guys now. And a lot of the guys came back, they just got rid of their uniform, and never talked about it again, ever. And some still to this day, still will not talk about it because they got hurt that bad. And I respect those guys, they want to talk about it, we’re here. If they don’t, I’ll leave them alone until they are ready to talk.”
They still need about $50,000 to fully complete the monument, which will include a helicopter mounted above the monument.
