Veterans share thoughts with opening of Memorial Park

Veterans share thoughts with opening of Memorial Park
By Ann Kagarise
The Suburbanite
Fri May 29, 2009, 10:43 AM EDT

Clinton, Ohio -
Three-thousand-ninety-four men, and one woman from Ohio, died in the Vietnam War. A wall was erected.

Veterans from that war, WWII, Korea, Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, paid tribute.
In their words…

Vietnam infantry veteran, John Carroll, of the Portage Lakes.

“This wall is to pay homage to our fallen comrades. It is for all people who served. They all did their part whether they were infantry or cooks. Everybody served hard.”

“It is hard for me to talk about,” Carroll said as he looked down. “There are times I don’t want to remember. Sometimes it feels good.”

He, along with 7,000 other veterans, traveled great distances, by motorcycle, through Canal Fulton for the unveiling of a wall that was long overdue. “This is for my fallen friends. Members of my team are on that wall.”

“Many of us had a hard time coming back and adjusting, drugs and different things,” Carroll explained. “Life itself. Not being sure of what really happened. It was real. It happened. I know that. Well, a lot more of these men suffered much more than I ever had,” he said as he looked over the crowd of bikers.”

Carroll used to do military escorts, before he was in the war. “We buried a lot of people from infantry. I escorted a lot of military funerals, but after I got out, all I wanted to do was forget. This is not about me. This is about all of these people.”
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Veterans share thoughts with opening of Memorial Park