Vietnam Veterans Get "Welcome Home" in Maine

Gov. LePage, First Lady, Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans, 50 years Later
Maine NPR
By JENNIFER MITCHELL
October 4, 2014

Veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, Ret. Staff Sgt. Donald Smith. One of the veterans welcomed home Saturday, Smith has been nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor by Rep. Mike Michaud.
Credit Jennifer Mitchell

Governor Paul LePage and First Lady Ann LePage were among those paying tribute to Maine's Vietnam Veterans Saturday afternoon at a welcome-home ceremony in Bangor at Cole Land Transportation Museum.

"What we have learned is that it's not the soldier that starts the war," said LePage after the ceremony, "I was in college from 1967 to 1971 and I saw what was going on stateside while these people were giving their lives. Their return home was never what it should have been."

Veterans from the Vietnam War era received a handshake from Governor LePage and a hug from First Lady Ann LePage.

One of them was 82 year old Donald Smith of Bristol, a Congressional Medal of Honor nominee, who served in both Korea and Vietnam. Smith says veterans' affairs and public awareness of veterans' issues have come a long way since the 1960's, but more work is needed.

"Being in a combat area is awful hard on a person, " explains Smith. "You lose all the freedom you had in civilian life and your life is on the line."

Returning to an unsympathetic public in the late 1960's made an already difficult situation worse. "It was almost like suicide coming back." he says.
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