Veterans Breakfast Club Executive Director Todd DePastino knows that everything associated with the Vietnam War is fraught. The deep divisions about and around it ensured that, and they echo as its history is presented in movies, books and documentaries — even with The Wall in Washington, D.C.
Add to that the very unwelcome home many Vietnam vets experienced, and decades passed before the federal government established a date to recognize their service.
It took until President Barack Obama’s administration, DePastino said, to designate March 29 as National Vietnam War Veterans Day. Why that date? It’s the day in 1973 that American forces officially deactivated the Military Assistance Command-Vietnam, or MACV, which had guided the U.S. war effort there since 1962. The Paris Peace Accords, signed in January that year, dictated that occur, and 23,000 remaining service members headed for the states, leaving behind some civilian advisers and Marines guarding the U.S. embassy.
DePastino, who taught Vietnam history as a college professor before founding the VBC, calls this date a good choice. To mark its 50-year milestone, VBC with co-sponsor Heinz History Center on Wednesday will give Pittsburgh-area veterans the heartfelt welcome home they did not receive.
The Mt. Lebanon-based VBC had two prior events to mark March 29, one online because of the pandemic and another last year at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum in Oakland.
The response surprised him. “When I first came aware of this holiday, I didn’t think too much of it,” DePastino said. From the first to the second, “I was stunned by the emotion of our vets to be recognized on this day. It awakened me to the importance of this day.”
As of Friday, 485 vets and their family members and friends have registered. That includes 325 in person with others joining online for those who cannot travel to the Heinz History Center. Preregistration is still open until noon Tuesday and will help VBC provide gift bags to all vets in attendance; anyone can come the day of the event, too.
DePastino, his staff and a committee have been planning it since December to ensure vets knew about it and to combine the in-person festivities with the virtual. Vietnam veteran Chris Moore, a KDKA Radio talk show host and well-known WQED producer and host, will speak.
Doors will open at 5:30 p.m., and those in attendance can look around the museum before gathering in the Mueller Center on its fifth floor for the program, which begins at 6:30 p.m. An honor guard from Vietnam Veterans Inc., a local group, will post the colors. In addition to some sharing of stories, which the VBC specializes in, DePastino said the names of every registered veteran who served in the war will be read.
Each one will receive a Vietnam War Commemoration pin and certificate, and veterans will be given a gift bag of VBC items plus a 1-pound bag of coffee from Khe Sanh, Vietnam, via a group it has a relationship with. A large group of volunteers will gather Tuesday to put all those bags together. Gift bags, the pins and certificates will be mailed to vets who join online.
DePastino believes the event offers not only the vets but also so many others an opportunity.
“We are really emphasizing to vets to attend. This is your chance to be welcomed home,” he said. “And for others, even those who opposed the war, and many of these people are in their 70s, regardless of what you believed back then, we want these warriors to be celebrated.
“As an organization and at our events, we are storytellers. We don’t want to glorify war or justify war. We think these stories are important whether you supported the war or not. We want to hear the stories regardless of how you might feel about the wars.”
The elapse of time since the war ended weighs heavy on VBC, too, DePastino said.
“[It’s] A very belated thank you, a gesture of appreciation of our Vietnam veterans. To welcome these veterans home the way they weren’t so much 50 years ago. To celebrate those who served during a very tumultuous war while we still can,” he said.
One other recognition will take place, too. VBC will honor De Van Ho, a warrant officer in the Republic of South Vietnam’s army. After the war ended in 1975, the Viet Cong forced him and tens of thousands of others into reeducation camps, where he spent 13 years enduring torture, and his family barely survived. He made it to Pittsburgh in 1991 through a humanitarian program for political prisoners and their dependents and is now in his 90s.
DePastino said 10,000 Vietnamese people live in Western Pennsylvania. They all have stories, he continued, but they don’t have the brotherhood the Vietnam veterans have. That’s because former soldiers like Ho don’t go to the VA hospitals and health care clinics, belong to veterans organizations or groups, and this is the chance to hear his story. Fifteen of his family members will attend as well.
The very unwelcome home those vets received did indeed leave lasting scars, and DePastino said this event is important because of that.
“I want them to take away that they are loved, they are appreciated, they are honored, and we thank them as a country,” he said. “I think they realize they were done a disservice when they returned home from war. Vietnam veterans are those more than anyone else — who help other veterans.”
DePastino has written about how many of them visit World War II veterans in nursing homes, welcome current service members home after their deployments end, and include Korean War service veterans — often the most forgotten of all service members — into their fold.
The VBC had no issue fundraising for this event — Humana, Julian Gray Associates, Advocate Health Advisers, and PA Health and Wellness serve as main sponsors — and many donors have stepped up to defray the costs of the gift bags, giving $3,200 so far.
He said one donor, Justin Thomas, who is an Iraq War veteran, added a note that underscored what VBC hears all the time: “When I returned home, Vietnam vets welcomed me home, and I am very grateful. They were there at the airport at 2 a.m. when the plane arrived.”
DePastino has a goal for Vietnam vets’ family members, too, who attend on Wednesday. “I’ve heard so many times over the years, from parents, spouses, children — ‘Yeah, he went overseas, and he doesn’t talk about it much,’” he said. “For them to connect, to share just a little bit about what that experience was like. The event is a way for family members to appreciate just what armed service involves, to get a sense of how much the military service is a part of their loved one’s identity.”
To register for the event, use this link: https://veteransbreakfastclub.org/events/.
The event will be streamed by the VBC via these links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/veteransbreakfastclub.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/VeteransBreakfastClub.
Helen is a copy editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but she's currently on strike. Contact her at hfallon@unionprogress.com.