200,000 March to Glory in Chicago : Viet Veterans: Dignity and Respect Restored

Nearly 200,000 Vietnam War veterans--an astounding and unexpected total--marched through downtown Chicago on Friday, while a flag-waving crowd of hundreds of thousands more cheered them as if they had just returned from the jungles of Southeast Asia.

The parade was planned as a homecoming that many Americans who served in Vietnam never had. An outpouring of emotion by spectators standing 20 deep in some places made it a symbolic reconciliation for a country and a city torn and tattered by the unpopular war.

The march began in a park named for Army Pvt. Milton Lee Olive III, killed in 1965 when he threw his body on a hand grenade to save four of his buddies. It ended in Grant Park, scene of a w1701145376disrupted the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Along the way, tearful veterans, many in wheelchairs, most dressed in jungle camouflage uniforms, embraced tearful onlookers. “Welcome home,” they cried from the curbs. “Thank you,” the men shouted back from under a shower of confetti and streamers pouring from windows in the city’s financial district.

For those who joined the march, it was a bid for dignity long denied, respect long refused.

“We didn’t get a parade,” said John Vdakes, who served with a helicopter unit. “When Gramps came home, he got a parade. When my dad got back from World War II, he got a parade. The Chicago Bears got a parade. When we came back to Tacoma, Wash., in 1973, people threw things at us.”

‘A Long Time Coming’

“We’re home, brothers,” J. R. Seymour said, embracing a stranger at curb side. “This was a long time coming and now I’m starting to get Vietnam out of my system.” Seymour marched holding the hand of his 4-year-old son, Braden.

“We’re finally being recognized for what we did,” said Jim Logsdon, 37, of Lafayette, Ind. “It’s important to know that what you did was appreciated,” added Logsdon, who lost both his legs in the war.

“I raised a little boy and he went to war and came back safe,” said Natalie Novak, 72, who kept reaching out from her spot along the curb to shake hands with passing veterans. “We should have done this a long time ago. They disgraced our boys by not honoring them earlier,” she said, adding that she had not planned to come to the parade. “I was watching it on television and decided I had to be here.”

Gen. William C. Westmoreland, who led U.S. troops in Vietnam and who led Friday’s parade, called the event “unprecedented, one we will never forget.”

Bob Wieland, 40, of Pasadena, Calif., marched just ahead of Westmoreland, walking not on his feet but on his hands. He lost his legs in 1969 just 28 miles north of Saigon. “Today was just awesome,” he said after completing the three-mile march.

It took a traffic-snarling four hours for the marchers to clear the route through the heart of downtown Chicago. The turnout was as much as eight times greater than the estimated 25,000 who marched in a similar celebration in New York a year ago and the biggest gath1701996910since the war. And it stopped the city in its tracks.

Workers Wave Flags

Construction workers, their feet hanging from the steel skeletons of new skyscrapers, waved flags. Window washers turned from work to hail marchers from scaffolds hung high above the city. Police turned from holding back crowds to applaud the veterans. Elevated train motormen stopped or slowed their trains as they passed over the march, blowing their whistles in shrill salutes. Banks, commodity exchanges, office buildings freed workers to join the celebration.

Friday’s march was the highlight of a week of reunion and celebration, recollection and reflection. And a week of remembering. There was remembering along the parade route too, remembering those whose fate is unknown and those who did not survive.

Ed Parnell, 33, almost out of place in his tailored dark suit, marched the three miles carrying a large colored picture of his brother Carl. “He died of Vietnam,” Parnell said. “He paid the ultimate price. He was a high school all-star but came back hooked on drugs and alcohol. He died of Vietnam.”

“Christ died for us. So did Mike Kelly,” said Charlie Lomas of Chicago, who joined the parade to carry a picture of Kelly. “He was a neighbor boy and there is nobody else here to do this for him,” Lomas said.

Buddies ‘Still There’

“I’ve got buddies still there, I know they’re still there,” said former prisoner of war Harley Walden of St. Louis. “There are more than 2,400 still missing and we’re not going to let anybody forget,” added Walden, who rode in one of the many floats and vehicles dedicated to those still unaccounted for.

“Had a brother at Khe Sanh, fighting off the Viet Cong,” read a sign in the crowd. “They’re still there. He’s all gone.”

“This parade isn’t for us,” said Oliver Moore, 37, of Las Vegas, “this is for the 58,000 who came home in plastic bags.”

Not far from where the march stopped, a stone’s throw from the site of the 1968 anti-war riots, stood a half-size model of the granite Vietnam Veterans War Memorial, a haunting reminder of the price of war.

Tens of thousands on Friday visited the memorial model, where the names of those who died are engraved. They left flowers, flags, tattered newspaper clippings, notes, poems--and rivulets of tears that flowed throughout the day and into the night.