Macon Vietnam veterans get a welcome home
As he got off the plane that brought him home from Vietnam, Johnny Payne noticed some people in the distance waving signs.
“I thought, well, it’s nice to be home, but I couldn’t read what they were saying,” he told a crowd that included about 50 other Vietnam veterans in a Wednesday ceremony in Macon. “They were reading ‘Baby killers, don’t come home,’ yelling at us as we got closer and even throwing rocks over the retaining fence.”
A recipient of the Bronze Star Medal, Payne was the keynote speaker at the event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War. The commemoration is a nationwide movement that starts this year and will continue for the 10-year span of full U.S. involvement in the conflict.
Payne, of Dublin, and many other Vietnam veterans returned home to Travis Air Force Base, near Oakland, California, which was an anti-war hotbed.
At the end of his talk Wednesday, Payne held up another sign that he wanted the veterans to see. It read “Welcome Home,” drawing a prolonged round of applause.
“Remember this one,” he said. “Don’t remember those signs at Travis Air Force Base.”
The ceremony was held at the Macon Vet Center, which is part of the Carl Vinson VA Hospital in Dublin.
Mike Roby, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Veterans Services, handed out certificates of appreciation to each of the veterans for their service. He said the state aims to give one of the certificates to each of the 242,000 Vietnam veterans in Georgia.
One of those getting a certificate Wednesday was Wilmer Smith Jr., of Macon, an Army artilleryman in Vietnam. He also returned home to Travis Air Force Base and remembered being rushed to change into civilian clothes so he would not be a target for protestors.
“I think it’s a great thing,” he said of Wednesday’s ceremony. “When we came home, we didn’t have no celebration for us.”
Deborah Ross, team leader of the Macon Vet Center, explained why the center held the ceremony.
“These are veterans who survived war,” she said. “They survived a culture that tried to shame and blame them when they came home, and truthfully they survived a health care system that 40 years ago didn’t even know what was going on with them, didn’t know how to take care of them.”
She said Vietnam veterans helped pioneer new ways of understanding and dealing with post traumatic stress disorder.
The Jones County High School Symphonic Band ended the ceremony by playing the songs of each branch of the military, as well as “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Afterwards, veterans were treated to a barbecue lunch provided by Volunteer Services at the Dublin VA.
This story was originally published September 9, 2015 at 10:38 PM with the headline "Macon Vietnam veterans get a welcome home ."