'Muster' to focus on Vietnam

Times-Herald.com: 'Muster' to focus on Vietnam

This Oct. 20-23 Coweta County will play host to a very special visitor: The Vietnam Memorial Moving Wall.

The half-sized replica of the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., contains the names of all those lost during the Vietnam War, including 20 from Coweta County.

The wall will be the main attraction of the 2011 Veterans Muster, which will be at the Coweta County Fairgrounds on Pine Road south of Newnan off U.S. 29.

Congress recently declared 2011 as the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Vietnam War. To recognize that occasion, the Coweta Commission on Veterans Affairs, which organizes and operates the annual Veterans Muster, decided to focus this year's event on the Vietnam War.

The members of the Commission on Veterans Affairs have worked tirelessly to bring the Moving Wall to Coweta and their efforts are to be applauded.

The Moving Wall is accompanied by other structures, including a space with exhibits about the Vietnam War and those who fought there. During its stay in Coweta the wall and accompanying exhibits will be open for viewing 24 hours a day and manned by volunteers ready to provide both security and assistance for visitors.

The Coweta Commission on Veterans Affairs has also started a website ( cowetacova.org ) containing information about the wall, the war and the Cowetans who died in Vietnam.

Much of the website information about Cowetans killed in Vietnam was provided by Steve Quesinberry, chairman of the Social Studies Department at Newnan High School. Quesinberry teaches a class on the Vietnam War and has spent countless hours outside the classroom researching the war, local events related to the war and local veterans who died in Vietnam.

The 2011 Muster will be a great event. To help commemorate the visit of the Moving Wall, The Times-Herald will, over the next 14 weeks, run a series of articles about the Vietnam War.

These stories will examine the causes, the victories, the defeats and the national unrest that followed the war from beginning to end. Each article will feature comments and stories about the Vietnam experience from current Coweta veterans who served there.

This series is intended to help readers understand more about America's most unpopular war. We also hope it will enable readers to realize how this war was different from any other, mostly for the way those who fought it were treated by some of their fellow citizens.

Soldiers from America's other wars came home to ticker tape parades, victory rallies and cheers from a grateful nation. Many who returned from Vietnam were spat upon, called "baby killers" and held up as a symbol of all that was wrong with America. And all because they served their country with dignity and honor.

In the 36 years since the last two servicemen died in Vietnam in 1975, America's Vietnam veterans have begun to win acceptance and are now honored at local and national events honoring all veterans. But the scars from that long ago war remain.

The Vietnam Memorial Moving Wall is called "The Wall That Heals" for a reason.

We hope events like the 2011 Veterans Muster will help heal those who served their nation in Vietnam and help all of us better understand why the wounds from that war are still so painful and so deep. Today, we start by explaining how America was drawn into the Vietnam War. And why.