Veterans Urge 2 Flags for Memorial

On a day when thousands

gathered in Westminster’s Little Saigon to celebrate Tet, the start of the lunar new year, a veterans group urged planners of a Vietnam War memorial to fly both the U.S. flag and that of the former Republic of Vietnam.

“There are 358,000 reasons to fly both,” said John Lynch, president of the Orange County chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America, referring to the 58,000 U.S. and 300,000 South Vietnamese soldiers who died in the war.

The issue of flying both flags has been a subject of controversy in Westminster, a community with a large Vietnamese population.

In April 1999, the City Council rejected a request to fly flags of the former Republic of Vietnam from city light poles on the anniversary of the fall of Saigon, bowing to pressure from veterans groups that said it would have shown disrespect for the American flag.

But in the case of the war memorial, it is important to recognize the soldiers of both countries, Lynch said. Every member of his group agreed; it voted unanimously last week to support the idea.

And the federal flag code would allow it, Lynch said, provided that no other flag flies higher than the U.S. flag.

“It is historically correct to fly both flags,” said Lynch, who marched with other veterans in Saturday’s Tet Festival parade in Westminster that drew about 10,000.

The memorial is to be built across from the Westminster Civic Center. The final design, though not yet approved by the City Council, features two soldiers standing side by side: one an American, the other South Vietnamese.