Vietnam Veterans Get Heroes Welcome in Maine

Vietnam Veterans Get Heroes Welcome
by Rob Poindexter
June 15th 2012

Waterville - It's a moment that Maine's Vietnam veterans have waited a half century for, but Thursday night in Waterville it finally happened.

A few hundred Vietnam Veterans got a proper homecoming that should have come when they returned from the Vietnam War. Many of the veterans here remember all too well how they were treated when they returned home from war. "We were treated as almost like a non-citizen," said Vietnam Veteran George Ward.

Another veteran, Robert Locklin, vividly remembers his first homecoming from the war.

"We got spit on and swore at. We were not liked too much. But that was the times back then," he said Thursday prior to the march. "In some cases we were ridiculed and called names and they were throwing trash at us rather than welcome home," Ward added.

Thanks to the folks at the Bureau of Veterans Services, and some of their fellow servicemen and women, on this day they march like heroes. "I didn't think we'd see this day. This is unbelievable," a tearful Locklin said of the Welcome Home event.
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