Vietnam Vets Wait Decades for Memorial

It's estimated that 9,000 men and women who served in Vietnam live in Onslow County, and yet a memorial has yet been erected to honor those still living and the dead.

By: Arthur Mondale | WNCT
Published: September 28, 2008

It's estimated that 9,000 men and women who served in Vietnam live in Onslow County, and yet a memorial has yet been erected to honor those still living and the dead.
But that will soon change...
On Saturday, hundreds of people who jumped on their hogs in hopes of honoring these veterans for the second Annual Vietnam Veterans Memorial Motorcycle Run.
Proceeds will help make the $4-million dollar memorial a reality.
The memorial is finally giving credit where credit is due. Vietnam veterans say this was hardly the welcome they received decades ago....
"It was terrible,” said Donald Thomas, Sr.
And the Thomas family says when it comes to memorials they're still left in the dark.
1,000 riders hopped on their hogs to raise $25,000.
Proceeds will go towards this future Vietnam Memorial; recognizing the 2.5-million who served in Vietnam, and an inscribed glass wall honoring the 58,229 killed.
"The Vietnam veterans are dying at a rapid rate, the VA estimates close to 200 a day,” said Onslow Vietnam Memorial Foundation president Kenji Horn. “We didn't have anybody welcoming them back in fact many were greeted with spitting and protesting. The American people just weren't in support of the war and they took it out on those just doing their duty…part of this is to make amends for the way they were treated then."
Vietnam veterans say it was an over three decade project in the making, finally getting the publics support.
groundbreaking for phase-one on the 5.7 acre site The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is set to begin next week. The memorial will be next to the Beirut Memorial.