Sense of ‘welcome’ follows bitterness of GI’s return home

Gary Chamberlin recalled protesters yelling and spitting on him as he arrived at the airport in Honolulu on his return trip from the Vietnam War.

At the time, the now 69-year-old Kalihi resident was a member of the Army’s Special Forces unit, the Green Berets.

“I still remember how I had to walk through that stuff,” he said Sunday at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl. “You basically took off your uniform as soon as you got back. You didn’t talk about the war. You didn’t want people to know because the reaction was usually so bad.”

Even veterans from other wars distanced themselves from Vietnam veterans, whom they saw as service members who lost a war, he said.

“You just had to pretend like you didn’t go to war, and decide you were going to get on with life the best you could,” he said.

For the past week the state has been honoring Vietnam veterans such as Chamberlin, on what organizers are calling the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War. While American combat missions began in Vietnam in 1962, between 1966 and 1967 the 25th Infantry Division out of Schofield Barracks was the largest division in Vietnam.

After Vietnam, Chamberlin transferred to the Air Force and flew F-4 Phantom fighter jets before retiring as a colonel with 30 years of military service.

On Saturday, Chamberlin participated in a parade in Waikiki, and on Sunday he attended a Roll Call of Honor in Remembrance Ceremony at the national cemetery.

“I honestly felt like Hawaii had done what it intended to do, which was welcome us home,” he said. “I felt welcome.”

The state’s Vietnam War commemoration will culminate with a Memorial Day event at 8:30 this morning at Punchbowl. It will be the first time the state combines its Memorial Day ceremony with the city’s ceremony, and about 3,000 are expected to attend.

More than 3 million Americans served in Vietnam, and more than 58,000 of them were killed in the war.

On Sunday, U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, keynote speaker for the Roll Call event, said the American flag is lowered to half-staff on the morning of Memorial Day and raised to the top of the staff at noon, the only time the flag is not kept at half-staff all day.

“It rises to honor the dead, and as a people we must also rise” in respect of the fallen, for those still serving, and to continue their fight for liberty and justice for all, he said.

Also on Sunday about 2,000 Boy Scouts placed flags and lei on the 38,000 headstones at Punchbowl.

Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, speaking at the Roll Call event, said the 112 acres of soil at Punchbowl and those buried there serve as a reminder to honor those who have served or are continuing to serve in the military, including the more than 1 million service members who have died defending the nation.

He quoted President Ronald Reagan, saying many of those who died in defense of the country were young and lost two lives: the one they were living and the one they would have lived.

“They gave up everything for their country for us,” he quoted Reagan as saying. “All we can do is remember.”