Fought in Three Wars, WW II to Vietnam: Major General Salve H. Matheson (Vietnam Veterans Day 2022)

From Coffee or Die.

In honor of today being a much too late, much-ignored thank you to those who fought in Vietnam and came home to a country that didn't welcome them as they should have for the most part.

Today is National Vietnam War Veterans Day.

All my blogs but one will honor them today.

MAJOR GENERAL SALVE H. MATHESON

He participated in D-Day, liberation of Holland, Battle of the Bulge  and also helped seize Hitler's Eagle's Nest.

During the Korean War, he had instrumental involvement in the  amphibious landings at Inchon and Wonsan.

In Vietnam, he assumed command of the  1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division and participated in the Tet Offensive.

And, I notice his name is not on the list of names to pick from as the Confederate-named Army bases are renamed.

Remembering the Fallen, Memorial Day 2019-- Part 2: A Great War Memory

Continued from today's Cooter's History Thing blog.

"In fact, Dier has exactly one memory of Jerry Corp, but it's a good one.

" 'Someone on the perimeter called in for a routine fire mission asking for illumination, ' Dier plans to say in his speech.  'I dropped a round down the the 81-millimeter mortar tube.  The shot went out, and we waited for the familiar pop and the subsequent intense light that the round would provide as it drifted slowly back to the ground for several hundred feet in the air.

"The descending illumination revealed a nearby hillside covered in jungle.  Jerry and I laughed as the flare drifted toward the hillside, watching a multitude of chirping birds who mistook the flare for sunrise.  The noise from the birds stopped suddenly -- as if a switch had been flipped -- when the flare burned out.' "

Continued on my Down Da Road blog.

Those Vietnam War Veterans!!!

Raise a toast to them.  That was one long and hard war.

11.   11,465 were less than 20 years old.

12.  From 1957 to 1973, the National Liberation Front assassinated 36,725  South Vietnamese and abducted 58,499.  Death squads concentrated on leaders that included teachers and minor officials.

13.  The number of North Vietnamese who were killed  was approximately 500,000 to 600,000..  Casualties: 15 million.

14.  One out of every ten Americans who served in Vietnam was a casualty.   Although the percentage who died  is similar to other wars, amputations or crippling wounds were 300 percent higher than in World War II.  75,000 Vietnam veterans are severely disabled.

Chalmette National Cemetery-- Part 2: From the War of 1812 to the Vietnam War

But, the cemetery's origins did not begin until 1864, when Abraham Lincoln established national cemeteries. The reason was to have places to bury those killed in the Civil War.

About half the graves at Chalmette National Cemetery are those of Civil War soldiers and there are 16,000 altogether dating from the War of 1812 to the Vietnam War.

The gravestones get smaller until some are just eight by eight  inches square for those who are unknown. About half of the Civil war soldiers are unknown, many of them having been hastily buried where they fell in fighting and then later removed to the national cemetery.

--Brock-Perry

USS Constitution Salutes Our Vietnam Veterans

From the May 18, 2018, Boston Globe  "USS Constitution Salutes Vietnam Veterans, Commemorates the War."

The USS Constitution is usually connected with the War of 1812, but Friday it commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War.

Five hundred Vietnam veterans departed on the Constitution at 10 a.m. and sailed around the harbor.  At Castle Island, the ship fired a 21-gun salute toward the South Boston Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

--Brock-Perry

50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War

The 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War will be spread out over a number of years because many Americans served over a long period of time.

The first Vietnam War commemoration event was held at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Memorial Day, May 28, 2012, and will conclude on Veterans Day, November 11, 2025.

Other Ships Named USS Patapsco

According to Wikipedia, there were two other USS Patapscos which may have participated in the War of 1812 as one was launched in 1806 and the other in 1812.  But Wikipedia only had a stub about these ships saying they existed, but there was no more information.  Nor could I find any more information about these ships elsewhere.

These ships might have served around Baltimore since that is the name of a river that flows into the Chesapeake Bay at  that point.

The next USS Patapsco was a Paissac-class monitor launched in 1862, fought during the Civil War, and sunk by a mine in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, in January 15, 1865.

The next one was a tug, the AT-10, the lead ship of her class which served the Navy from 1911 to 1936.

The last USS Patapsco, AOG-1, was the lead-ship of her class of gasoline tankers and served in World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam War.

--Brock-Perry

Honoring Our Veterans: Washington, D.C., Memorials-- Part 2

The starkly moving Vietnam veterans memorial features black granite walls inscribed with the names of more than 58,209 Americans missing or killed in the war.  Also on the site is Frederick Hart's life-size bronze sculpture depicting three young servicemen.  The memorial is free and open 24 hours.

Objects left at the wall are taken to a special storage facility.

The Vietnam Women's memorial is located in a grove of trees across from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  The 2,000 pound bronze statue depicts three service women and one wounded soldier.

There is also a World War I memorial to honor men who served from the Washington, D.C. area on the National mall, but increasing calls are being made for a regular memorial to be erected.

--GreGen