The Montrose Vietnam War Memorial

For 50 years now, a solitary volunteer has each day carefully swept the ground around the Vietnam War Memorial, tended the flowers planted there, and taken care of the American flag that flies over the northwest corner of Honolulu Avenue and Ocean View Boulevard in the Montrose Shopping Park. That spot, with its open area and benches, has become a community center of sorts, a gathering spot. Kids eat ice cream, teenagers sell goodies for fundraisers, musicians play tunes and pass the hat, protesters gather with homemade signs, politicians make speeches at the yearly Memorial Day event, and shoppers, dog walkers and parents with strollers pass each other, all enjoying our beautiful Montrose. Most don’t read the words on the memorial in the center, and even fewer read the names there. How that monument came to be is a story of a community pulled together by tragedy.

In 1968, America was deeply and violently divided over the war in Vietnam. Seemingly half the country strongly supported our military mission there while the other half strongly felt it was misguided and immoral, and our society convulsed with the struggles between the two camps. Caught in the middle were our young men who joined our military, or were drafted, and did their best in the face of a determined enemy. They answered their country’s call, and all too often gave their lives.

Our own small community had been traumatized by the loss of six young men in Vietnam by early 1968. There was no outlet for our grief and no place where those men could be mourned. The community leaders of Montrose recognized that need and, in February 1968, put together a plan for a memorial in the center of Montrose. They called on it to be built by the community with small donations and local labor. The cause was championed and coordinated through our local paper at the time, the Ledger.

A total cost for a monument and flagpole, along with six memorial plaques, was put at $1,000 and in February the call was put out for donations. Before a month had passed, the goal had been reached. Individuals, community groups, churches, businesses and elementary school classes were all sending in donations. Quickly the donations doubled again and kept streaming in until finally the paper had to put out a call to stop sending donations!

It was clear that this monument was something that was desperately needed. Soon a design for the monument was penciled out by local architect Jack Simison and local builder Bob Genofile constructed the slab and base and erected the flagpole. On Flag Day, June 14, 1968, with the shot that killed Bobby Kennedy still ringing in our ears, our community came together to dedicate this monument.

In the years following, 18 more names were added, bringing the total to 24 local boys lost.

It was, as far as we know, the first such monument in the U.S. dedicated to the sacrificed lives in the conflict in Vietnam. Although that war is becoming a historical side-note to the younger generation, to those who were alive during it, the memory is often still an open wound. But no matter how we felt about that war, it’s the memory of these 24 men that is important.

There is a sentiment that although we die in the traditional sense when we cease to breathe, we truly die when someone speaks our name for the last time. Our true death comes when we are completely forgotten. Let’s not ever forget the 24 men whose names are on that memorial. They lived here in our peaceful valley but died violently in a foreign place far away.

In the next few weeks leading up to the 50th anniversary of the Montrose Vietnam War Memorial in June, I will bring you brief biographies of each of these men. When you are at the flagpole in Montrose, eating ice cream, watching happy shoppers, you can look at the names on the plaques there and you will finally know who they were. You will remember them and they will be kept alive in your hearts.