Edwards honor guard opens Veterans Day ceremony featuring Vietnam Memorial Wall

  • Published
  • By Rebecca Amber
  • Staff writer
PALMDALE, Calif. --  Hundreds of Antelope Valley residents gathered at the Palmdale Amphitheater Tuesday for a Veteran's Day ceremony alongside the Mobile Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Wall. The presentation, put together by the Antelope Valley Service Organization Association, was one of several ceremonies held during the 5th anniversary display of the wall from Nov. 6 to 11.

The Edwards AFB Blue Eagles Honor Guard conducted the raising of colors for the Pledge of Allegiance and national anthem sung by Highland High School's Travel Ensemble.

City of Palmdale mayor, James Ledford, commended veterans for the sacrifices they made, but not without recognizing their families.

"[The families] are veterans too. They have the same pressure that the veterans face and maybe more so," said Ledford. "They live with it every day when their loved ones are no longer here. They're here and thinking about this every day when their loved ones are serving, maybe overseas or just doing regular duty. These people live as a veteran and I think we have an obligation as a community to always remember them."

Highland High School Air Force JROTC set the table of honor for prisoners of war and missing in action past, present and future. The small, round table represents the frailty of one prisoner, alone against their oppressors and the never ending concern for them. It is set with a white table cloth for the purity of their response to the country's call to arms and on it they placed items like a bible, a black napkin, a single red rose and a wine glass turned upside down.

Each of the items is symbolic and placed with the POW/MIA's honor in mind.

Carl Hernandez, past commander of American Legion Post 348, has experienced the pain that comes when a soldier is lost to war. Through his original poem, Hernandez shared how the Vietnam Memorial Wall has helped him through the healing process.

"Does this wall really heal?," recited Hernandez. "The first time I saw the wall, I cried just to see how many had died. I deeply wish it had not been, I had this guilt within where many young people had gone, why was the war so long..."

In the end, he concluded, that the names on that wall, will never be forgotten.

Antelope Valley resident, Janet MacDougall-Bailey attended the ceremony with a World War II-era photograph of her father, Colin MacDougall, under her arm. Born in 1920, he flew P-38's and B-51's around the Lucian Islands during WWII. While she is proud of her father for his service, she came to ceremony primarily to honor Vietnam Veterans.

"I'm of that age and everybody I went to high school with graduated and went straight to Vietnam and I really have a soft spot in my heart because I know they didn't get the respect that they needed," said MacDougall-Bailey holding back tears.

Staff Sgt. Jeremy Waldrip, Blue Eagles Honor Guard NCOIC, has family members who served in Vietnam. His relatives returned home safely, but the wall is something he found "amazing."

"It was an honor to participate in this unique event and a great opportunity to interact with the community.  We have a duty as well to remember the history that our veterans lived and to appreciate and honor the history they made," said Waldrip.

The half-scale replica of the of the original Vietnam Memorial wall at the National Mall in Washington D.C. holds all 58,299 names of the individuals who died during the Vietnam War. Seventy-six of those names belonged to people from the Antelope Valley. The names on the wall are engraved to allow visitors to obtain a pencil rubbing.

Linda Willis, AV Wall Committee secretary, estimates 5,000 people visited the wall, which had 24-hour public access while it was open.

AV Wall Committee president emeritus, George Palermo, is one of the Vietnam Veterans who was instrumental in the wall's creation. The inspiration for the wall came in 2005 during a Palmdale Playhouse production of "A Piece of My Heart."

"At the time there were only three traveling walls and we checked with all of them and none of them would do it," said Palermo.

Instead, the committee was formed, fundraisers were held and in November of 2009, the finished wall was dedicated at Joe Davies Heritage Airpark. It has been displayed in Antelope Valley, Simi Valley, Ridgecrest and Bishop.

"To be honest, until I got involved with the wall, I never really attended Veterans Day ceremonies," said Palermo. "I really didn't feel like I qualified to be part of it, I wasn't a combat veteran, I was one of support veterans. Most of the guys you meet from Vietnam are support people because for every one boot on the ground that we had in Vietnam there were nine people supporting them."

Palermo described one of the other traveling walls as the catalyst that brought him home from Vietnam.

"From then on, the wall has been part of who I am," he said. "If there's a wall anywhere near me I'm there."

Palermo was trained as a jet engine mechanic. When he was assigned to a fleet they needed crew chiefs, which they called plane captains, and that's what he did. He served in 1968-1969. On the wall there are names of three men that he served alongside and a dozen more that he knew.

"I'm hoping that [visitors] come away with a realization that these guys need to be remembered and that those are currently serving need to be honored every chance you get to meet them," said Palermo. "If you just say thank you for your service that's more than enough; for a Vietnam Veteran it helps to say welcome home because we never got that."