Honoring Those Who Died in Vietnam

Jim Britton’s greatest fear back in 1965 was that he would never get out of Fairhope, Ala.

He was a high school dropout with no love for his hometown and little ambition. He remembered his father’s service with the Marines at Iwo Jima in World War II and figured he had a better chance of capturing an island than making a life where he was. So he enlisted.

“I joined knowing I was going to Vietnam,” the Ventura man said Wednesday. “I had no doubts, no fears. Blind faith.”

By the time his tour was up less than two years later, his world had changed completely. His marriage had soured and his blind faith had been shattered.

Early Wednesday, he and half a dozen other middle-aged veterans and a crew of grave diggers met on the grounds of Pierce Bros. Valley Oaks Memorial Park to erect a monument to that long-ago war that would connect them to their pasts and call forth their dead comrades.

Tonight, the names of 135 Ventura County soldiers who died in the war will be read aloud at the monument, a traveling replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Beginning Saturday, every name on the wall--more than 58,000--will be read aloud in shifts expected to last 49 hours.

The replica will be on display 24 hours a day through Monday at the cemetery.