When Col. H. Russell Wright Jr. woke up Friday morning and saw the foggy, muggy weather, he said he thought of Vietnam.
He also said he thought of the monsoons, bugs and mud of the combat fields, the nights spent in foxholes and watching friends die before his eyes.
“The freedoms we enjoy everyday are fought for with a very dear price,” he told a crowd beginning their Memorial Day weekend at a service commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Baltimore County Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
The memorial, a bench, fountain and black granite slab that names all 147 Baltimore County residents who died in the war, sits in a quiet garden outside the Old Courthouse.
Veterans can appreciate the contrast to the noise and chaos of war, said County Executive Jim Smith.
“From the halls of the Capitol in Washington to kitchen tables right here in Baltimore County, some supported the war in Vietnam, and some raised doubts about why our soldiers were in Vietnam, and what they should be doing there,” Smith said. “What was never in doubt, and should never have been, is the bravery, the heroism and the honor of those men and women.”
Members of the county?s Annapolis delegation, retired judges and county council members ? including Council Member Kenneth Oliver District 4, himself a Vietnam Veteran ? joined Smith at the ceremony.
The weather forced event planners to move the ceremony into the Towson Armory and cancel a flyover. Wright and two other highly decorated veterans spoke about their experiences in the long and controversial war that killed 58,000 Americans.
Col. Charles E. DeShields Sr., a former pilot who has twice been shot down, said Memorial Day is not a day to run errands and go to the beach, but reflect and give thanks.
“Freedom is not free,” he said. “It is paid for by many lives and sacrifices. That is Memorial Day.”
