Richard E. Roberts, Jr. embraces his 14 year-old son Eric after a brief ceremony Monday at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to add his father, Sgt. 1st Class Richard Eugene Dodd's name to the wall.At their right is Luci Roberts,the widow of Sgt. Dodd and state Rep. Gary Alexander, R-Thurston County, (center) who worked on the family's behalf to get the missing name added.Dodd was stationed during the war at Fort Lewis and was killed in action on Dec 31st, 1970 while serving with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment.(Steve Bloom/The Olympian)
Family adds dad to shrine Memorial day: Observances include new name on Vietnam memorial
John Dodge • The Olympian • Published May 26, 2009
OLYMPIA – Vietnamese and U.S. soldiers who gave their lives in the Vietnam War were honored Monday at the Vietnam Refugee Memorial Day Ceremony at the Vietnam War Memorial on the state Capitol Campus.
The event capped a series of Memorial Day activities at the Capitol Campus that included:
- The additiosn to the Vietnam Memorial of the name of Sgt. 1st Class Richard Eugene Dodd, who was killed Dec. 31, 1970, in Vietnam while serving with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment from Fort Lewis.
- His name was added as part of the annual Thunder Run Memorial Day Ceremony sponsored by the Vietnam Vets/Legacy Vets Motorcycle Club, which drew several hundred veterans on motorcycles to the Capitol Campus.
- A Memorial Day Ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda sponsored by the Thurston County Veteran’s Council.
About 100 people, many of them Vietnamese women dressed in black and Vietnamese men in the military uniforms of their native land, gathered to show their gratitude to those from both countries who fought for the freedom, democracy and human rights of the South Vietnamese.
They placed colorful wreaths at the foot of the memorial, released balloons into the air, sang the national anthems of both countries and offered a minute of silence for the 450,000 South Vietnamese soldiers and more than 60,000 U.S. soldiers who died in the war.
Among the speakers was retired Lt. Col. Le Van Thanh of the Vietnam Air Force. After the Communist takeover, the former fighter pilot served 13 years in a Communist concentration camp.
“Many people have advised us to forget the past,” he said. “However, we are Vietnamese and we love our freedom. We cannot forget.”
“Many say this was not a righteous war,” Thanh continued in a speech translated by Tumwater school teacher Allen Jones, husband of Lan Phan Jones, one of the 2,000 Vietnamese refugees living in Thurston County and an organizer of the event. “If it wasn’t a righteous war, why did six South Vietnamese generals and thousands of South Vietnamese soldiers take their lives rather than surrender to the Communists?”
Hua Yen Len, a former South Vietnamese Army colonel, said he was especially proud of the U.S.-born children of Vietnamese refugees serving in the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
About a dozen American Vietnam veterans attended the Vietnamese ceremony, including Dennis Burton, a Yelm resident who served as a U.S. Army pilot in Vietnam 1966-67.
Burton later flew more than 50 missions as a Northwest Airlines pilot bringing refugees out of the country after it fell to the Communists on April 30, 1975.
“It makes me feel good to be here,” said Burton, who also attended the ceremony on Memorial Day in 1987 to unveil the Vietnam War Memorial in honor of the 1,116 state residents killed or missing in Vietnam. “The Vietnamese are nice people – I hope they can go home some day and see their country.”
