Local Honor Flight Veterans etch names of loved ones at Vietnam Wall Memorial in D.C.

WASHINGTON (Valley News Live) - It was a busy Monday for the 99 North Dakota and Minnesota Honor Flight Veterans, touring the monuments built in their honor in Washington, D.C.

They stopped at the Lincoln Monument, Arlington National Cemetery, The Korean War Memorial and the Vietnam Wall, where emotions ran high for many who were there for the first time.

For many veterans on the trip, the 58,000 names on the wall are those of friends, classmates and family members lost in the Vietnam War.

“What happened to the last 53 years? It’s gone,” Vietnam Veteran David Sjostrom said. “What happened to these guys? Forever young. They’re forever young.”

As Sjostrom and two other Bemidji veterans toured the wall, they thought about the other men they knew who never made it back from Vietnam.

“One of the guys here was a friend from kindergarten through college,” Sjostrom said. “I was the best man at his wedding. We were in training together in Ft. Lewis. The last thing he said was if he goes over he won’t come back. He didn’t come back.”

All three men told a similar story of someone with a premonition they wouldn’t be coming back. That turned out to be true.

“We brought the ashes of two brothers who had passed from Agent Orange and they’re here,” Vietnam Veteran Dennis Clemenson said. “We spread their ashes here. That happened, yeah, we did it.”

Memories of their service, good and bad, came flooding back. They will be taking new ones back with them, but they will never forget the sacrifices their loved ones made.

“You picture them just as the way they were the day they left your hometown,” Vietnam Veteran Michael Liapis said. “That’s how you remember them. That’s how you see them.”

If you know a name on the Vietnam wall and want your own etching of it, you can have it shipped right to your home. Just click here.