Sarah Brown
Jack McCreary, Bill McKechnie and Chuck Christensen had never met until only recently, when the three Sweet Home residents shared an experience that united them by a common bond.
The three participated in a special tour to Washington, D.C. as part of the South Willamette Valley Honor Flight May 17-19, which focused on Vietnam veterans this year. They all applied for the opportunity to attend, and they all forgot about it until a couple years later, when they received the acceptance phone call.
Christensen served in the Navy from 1959 to 1963 as a radio operator. McCreary served in the Navy from 1965 to 1967 working on the USS Duluth LPD-6. McKechnie served in the Army from 1967 to 1969 as a truck driver based out of Cu Chi, Vietnam.
Several years ago, McKechnie took his best friend to the Oregon Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Portland. His friend was moved by the experience, and the two made a pact to go together to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in D.C.
His friend passed away before they could make the trip, but after having gone himself this year, McKechnie expressed interest in returning some day with others who could also find healing by the experience.
On the wall, McKechnie found names of classmates from his high school days in Albany.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” Mc-Kechnie said. “I expected the wall to be a completely emotional experience, but I’m (still) processing it.”
If time and space had allowed, he would have preferred to sit under the trees at the statue of The Three Soldiers and take time to “soak it in” and contemplate, he said.
The SWV Honor Flight included 63 veterans, most of whom were in the military during the Vietnam War, with a few also from the Korean and Second World wars.
The group started each day at 6 a.m. to prepare for 40-minute visits to multiple memorials and sights, including the Lone Sailor, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Iwo Jima, Lincoln Memorial, and the National Air and Space Museum.
For Christensen, it was important to see the Vietnam Memorial wall and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which impacted him emotionally in realizing the commitment those “kids” made for life. He was also pleased to see the Lone Sailor statue, because his dad had given him a replica of it years ago.
McKechnie was impressed by the number of new memorials erected in D.C. since he was stationed there 50 years ago, including the Freedom Wall at the World War II Memorial, which consists of 4,048 gold stars representing the loss of 405,399 American lives from the war.
“It goes through my mind: Every one of us is not just one person,” he said. “They’ve got a family. They had friends. The community that lost them. Millions were affected by those things. That stands out to me, how much this cost.”
Visiting the Veteran Memorial was one of the highlights of his experience. While there, McKechnie looked for a name – Lonnie Moore, of Lebanon – on behalf of his brother-in-law.
“When I found it, at the same time one of the other vets in the group actually located that name too,” McKechnie said. “This other guy had run with him in high school and was specifically looking up his name.”
McCreary said it was a great experience to visit the Air and Space Museum and seeing the Vietnam wall, as was getting to see how large the Iwo Jima Memorial is.
“I’d seen it in pictures, but it just blew me away. It was so huge. I couldn’t believe how big it really was. It was really something.”
He was also impressed by the changing of the guards at Arlington National Cemetery.
Only one memorial was passed over during the tour, with just a simple acknowledgement as the bus drove on.
“You see those out there?” one of the bus drivers announced as he pointed toward a large row of toilets. “Those are the Jane Fonda Memorial.”
“Everybody got a good laugh out of that one,” McCreary said.
Christensen noted Vietnam veterans were largely not recognized when they came home, nor were they welcomed home.
“Most of the hippies, I guess you’d call ’em, were against the war and they were against anybody that fought in the war. So no, we weren’t recognized,” he said.
But the veterans on the Honor Flight were satisfied with the reception they got during their trip.
When they first landed in D.C., everyone at the airport welcomed the group, McKechnie said.
“That’s something I didn’t experience when I came home,” he said. “And coming back in to Portland was overwhelming.”
Portland’s crowd of greeters included a bagpiper, patriot guards, police, firemen and civilians that surrounded them all the way to their buses. And there was one other thing that accompanied the crowd.
“A lot of ‘welcome homes’. That was important because several of us didn’t experience that at all,” he said.
“The arrival in D.C. and the coming home, that was to me very, very touching,” McCreary added. “The people that showed up, it was just fantastic. I didn’t expect anything like that at all. It was very gratifying.”
McKechnie said the entire experience helped provide closure for him. The three agreed that although there was so much to see in a short amount of time, the tour was very well-planned.
“It was a very, very good experience,” McCreary said. “The people that put it on worked really hard and made it very much a success.”
On reflecting about why they joined the military and thinking of those who join today, they agreed the reasons for joining are different between the generations.
McKechnie joined because it was the right thing to do and he wanted to go to Vietnam, he said. Back then, people knew what they were getting in to, but today young adults sign up to get into a career.
“Not to go die, but to live and serve our country,” he said.
“It’s a good place to grow up,” Christensen said. “They teach you discipline. They teach you how to take orders before you start giving them. If you’re insecure in what you want to do in life, the service is a good place to start. If you have a problem following orders, you won’t when you get out of this camp.”