Eagle Point, Ore. — 45 years after U.S. troops pulled out of Southeast Asia, local Vietnam veterans were honored on Thursday.
Ceremonies were held in Grants Pass and Eagle Point.
The ceremonies meant a lot to the veterans who say they weren’t always treated well.
NBC5’s Elizabeth Ruiz planned on going to the event and reporting on what happened, but she met a veteran who tells his story better than any reporter ever could.
Meet Sam Tomich and hear what the ceremony’s honors meant to him:
“We honor all those veterans serving from 1955 to 1975,” ceremony coordinator Bob Huff said.
“I’m here today to pay my respects to all the Vietnam vets who served their country very honorably when we got back from the war,” Vietnam Veteran Sam Tomich said.
“It was an unpopular war when the war ended, and there was kind of a lack of understanding and sympathy or empathy for Vietnam vets when they got back.”
“I started attending back in the 70s and early 80s… protests, sit-ins, and marches that Vietnam veterans were putting together, and at those events I started running into a significant number of mothers who had lost their suns in the war,” Tomich said.
“They wanted to do something positive instead of being in sheer, utter pain and sorrow about all that. So they started coming to these functions… supporting Vietnam veterans.”
“They dealt with just horrific, mangled, bodies, and seriously wounded people… So they were really on the line everyday giving their all,” Tomich said.
“My mom used to have a plaque in her den that said ‘Vietnam was not a movie, it was a war… and uh… that meant a lot to her.”
As a “thank you” from the nation, all Vietnam Veterans in attendance were presented with a pin.
Sam Tomich says he would love to give his pin to a mother who lost a child in the war.
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