Marine Corps veteran Raymond West earned two Purple Hearts during his tour of Vietnam in 1968-69, with gunshot wounds days apart.
“I was at Khe Sanh, and I got shot in the leg,” he told Dr. Trong Phan, shortly after the pair encountered each other on the edge of a 600-plus crowd on hand to formally open the National Vietnam War Museum Saturday morning.
West, 75, remarked at how young he’d been when he joined the war, at 19 years old.
“We all were. Oh, my, just a young man,” said Phan, who left his native Vietnam on a boat five years after the war ended — and served 33 years in the U.S. Air Force.
“My thought is, I’m in the sands of appreciation,” Phan said, describing himself as one of uncounted people grateful to the men and women who fought the North Vietnamese communists while he was a boy.
“That’s why we want to be here and why we want to support this effort,” he said. “This (war) might not be a good American experience, but maybe it’s just a memory to treasure and maybe do better next time”
With the hundreds seated beneath tents where large fans were aimed, speakers from each of the military service branches retold memories. Vietnam veteran and actor Troy Evans spoke after Museum Board Treasurer and Emcee Jim Messinger recognized donors and singled out the Parker County Master Gardeners for their years of beautification on the 12-acre campus.
“It’s the perfect location, right here in the home of Army aviation,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Tex Brown told the crowd, referring to nearby Fort Wolters Army Air Base where the helicopter pilots who have guided the museum were trained decades ago.
Katee Girling, president of the Sons and Daughters of Vietnam Veterans — and a museum board member — described exhibits inside the two-story, 20,000-square-foot museum the crowd would soon tour.
“But most of all,” she said to the veterans, “welcome home.”
Before rejoining the crowd, West mused on life since the war.
“I’ve been through a lot of PTSD programs,” he said. “But, right now, Vietnam seems a long way away.”
He paused, then added, “You know what? I’d do it again.”
___
(c) 2022 Weatherford Democrat
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
