Tuesday, Nov. 11, 1968, in Old Mystic, Connecticut, was cold, stormy and barely light at 6 a.m. when my father drove my husband, Army Captain Dave Crocker Jr., and me to the tiny Groton airport where Dave would board a small prop plane for the first leg of his trip west to Vietnam. I was not thinking about the fact that November 11th was also the 50th anniversary of the armistice in 1918 that marked the cessation of hostilities on the Western front of World War I. In 1968, at age 21, 50 years seemed like eons ago.

My grandfather served from 1915 to 1918 in the British Army in World War I. He endured the trenches of France and the Russian front as a bombardier, eventually spending the armistice in a hospital in Malta. He married my grandmother, Jennie Whipple, in North Stonington in 1919 but soon began to suffer from the wounds, deprivations and mustard gas he endured in the war.

I was only eight when he died at Uncas Hospital in Norwich so he didn’t have the opportunity to advise me about the risks of marrying a soldier in the infantry 11 years later. And, like many veterans, he didn’t reminisce or talk about the war. Even my father, who had survived World War II on a Navy oil freighter, the Marmee, in the China Sea, said little or nothing about his war experiences when he returned.

War stories can be hard for both the teller and the listener. For some people that first “telling” may not happen for years after the event. Veterans and other survivors of war may hold back their untold stories for decades. Despite their courage on the battlefield, describing that experience requires a reaching back into gut-wrenching details that they had tried hard to forget, perhaps even back to a place where they may have felt guilty to be a survivor.

Now we have a generation of veterans of the Vietnam War who have also kept their stories very close to their hearts. The Vietnam War Commemoration, initiated in 2008, has helped to encourage many veterans and their families to speak about their experience. Eye witness accounts have been recorded in the National Archives, on podcasts such as those made by the Veteran’s Breakfast Club in Pittsburgh, Pa., and on the Vietnam War Commemoration website. The stories are vivid and often laced with the unique physical details that embodied the Vietnam combat experience: navigating booby traps at night in dense jungles, intense heat, dust, monsoon rains, faulty weapons, leeches, foot rot and infestations of red ants.

In 2012, when President Obama proclaimed March 29 as National Vietnam Veterans Day, the proclamation called upon all Americans to observe the day with programs, ceremonies and activities that commemorate those who served in the war. March 29 was chosen because, on that day in 1973, the last U.S. combat troops departed the Republic of Vietnam.

Of the 2,709,918 Americans who served in Vietnam – 9.7% of their generation — 58,148 died there. Among those who returned, 75,000 came back severely physically disabled. If you are a Vietnam veteran reading this today, you are among the last one-third of all those who served in Vietnam.

Remembering and commemorating doesn’t seem to prevent the eruption of conflicts that result in war but it does acknowledge the sacrifices, including those made by the estimated 850,000 Vietnam veterans who are still alive today. Many who returned had to endure a hostile reception when they arrived home back in the 1960s and 70s because of strong sentiment against the war.

Among survivors, years of unsettled silence followed the war but during the 1990s, aided by the internet, more and more old comrades began to reconnect and hold reunions. In my husband’s unit, one former platoon leader designated himself as a “finder” and searched telephone books across the country. He found and brought together more than 50 fellow soldiers. It was when they posted tributes on the virtual Vietnam Memorial Wall to my late husband, their beloved Company Commander, that I discovered them and started to attend reunions with them in 2006. Their commemorations of Dave, along with their stories of serving with him until his death in 1969, provided a powerful and healing medicine for all of us.

Tuesday, March 29, 2022, National Vietnam Veterans Day, offers everyone the opportunity to remember and acknowledge the sacrifice of all Vietnam Veterans. Check the commemoration website at vietnamwar50th.com for events in your area. Someone might even share a story.

Ruth W. Crocker lives in Mystic. You can reach her at RuthWCrocker@gmail.com.