Tag Archives: National Memorial Day Concert

Exclusive: Denyce Graves on performing at the National Memorial Day Concert and President Biden giving her a shoutout in his inaugural speech

Denyce Graves on performing at the National Memorial Day Concert and President Biden giving her a shoutout in his inaugural speech.

By Jami Philbrick

The 32nd National Memorial Day Concert returns with an all-star lineup to salute our American heroes. The PBS multi-award winning show is hosted by Joe Mantegna and Gary Sinise with Denyce Graves performing “American Anthem,” which has a very special meaning to her and President Biden who mentioned the song in his inaugural speech.

“I jumped out of my chair and started screaming. I was doing a hallelujah dance in my living room. That was just terrific. I had sung that song at the memorial service for the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s funeral and then President-elect Biden was in attendance and heard that song. He came up to me after the service and said, ‘I love that song. What is that song?’ So, we had a chance to talk about the piece and he told me how meaningful it was to him. When he quoted that at the end of the inaugural, I almost passed out. I couldn’t believe it,” Graves exclusively told The Voluntourist.

The 2021 NATIONAL MEMORIAL DAY CONCERT will share the following stories:

Vietnam Nurses Tribute – performed by Emmy Award-winning actress Kathy Baker (PICKET FENCES).
The concert will honor the more than 265,000 women who served during the Vietnam War era and pay special tribute to the sacrifice and heroism of the nurses who served in Vietnam, saving thousands of lives and comforting the dying in their final moments. The experiences of Diane Carlson Evans, founder of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial in Washington, D.C., will be shared.

70th Anniversary of the Korean War – portrayed by Emmy Award-winning actor Joe Morton (SCANDAL).
Now, seventy years after the Korean War, the concert will pay tribute to the more than 1.7 million Americans sent to fight in this brutal conflict, and the over 36,000 American lives lost. No group exemplified the courage and heroism of our fighting forces more than the 2nd Ranger Infantry Company. Taking on dangerous assignments, serving with distinction and honor, this elite Airborne unit was the Army’s only all-black Ranger Infantry Company. On the cusp of our military’s integration, these trailblazing heroes changed attitudes, and opened possibilities for all African American men and women in uniform.

20th Anniversary of 9/11 and Gold Star Families – featuring Emmy Award-winning actor Steve Buscemi (BOARDWALK EMPIRE), acclaimed actresses Mary McCormack (WEST WING) and Bailee Madison (A WEEK AWAY). This Memorial Day, in a segment hosted by Steve Buscemi, the concert will commemorate the 20 years since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, remembering all those who died that tragic day and in the twenty years since in service to our nation. It was a pivotal time for the country, and many Americans were inspired to join our all-volunteer armed forces. The concert will honor these service members and their families affected by a generation at war and share the poignant story of one Gold Star Family.

Due to the pandemic, the National Memorial Day Concert will be pre-taped, instead of the traditional live show held at the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. The special 90 minute event airs on PBS Sunday, May 30th at 8:00 P.M. ET and will include General Colin Powell, Gladys Knight, Vince Gill, Sara Bareilles, Alan Jackson, The Four Tops, Steve Buscemi, Joe Morton, Brian d’Arcy James, Kathy Baker, Denyce Graves, Mary McCormack, Bailee Madison and the National Symphony Orchestra, with a Special Performance of the National Anthem by Mickey Guyton.

May 29, 2021 admin

How Joe Morton is paying tribute to Black soldiers at the 32nd Annual National Memorial Day Concert

Joe Morton pays tribute to Korean War veterans, Black soldiers and his own father in this year’s National Memorial Day Concert, which airs on PBS.

By Sharon Knolle

At the 32nd annual National Memorial Day Concert, Joe Morton, who won an Emmy for his role as Rowan Pope on “Scandal,” will share the story of Cleveland Valrey, a decorated officer of the Korean War who was part of the Army’s only all-black Ranger Infantry Company. Valrey is now fighting Parkinson’s Disease and could not attend this year’s ceremony, which takes place every year at the National Mall in Washington D.C.

The decorated veteran received a number of military awards for his Korean War service including the Combat Infantryman Badge, Purple Heart, Army Commendation Medal, and the United Nations Service Medal. Valrey, who achieved the rare status of both Master Parachutist and a Master Army Aviator, continued serving for 30 years through the Vietnam War. In 2001, he was inducted into the U.S. Army Aviation Hall of Fame and in 2005 was inducted into the U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame.

Valrey’s story resonates with Morton because the actor’s own father, Joseph Thomas Morton Sr., served a key role in the Korean War.

“His job when he arrived in Okinawa was to integrate the Armed Forces overseas,” Joe Morton shares. “He was taking on a responsibility that was enormous. In spite of the fact that, legislatively, the Army was supposedly integrated, it still had
to go through all of the difficulties of actually implementing that. ”

He recalls it wasn’t an easy position to be in for him or his parents: “When I was a kid, you would hear white soldiers say terrible things about and to Black soldiers. The fact my father was a Captain and was there as a Black man in charge of white enlistees, he was tremendously looked down upon. I was involved in fights with white kids on posts. My mother had to deal with
the white women who were other officers’ wives. It was a real education, in terms of the kind of belief systems and the kind of horrors that Black people had to go through in this country for a very long time.”

A proud Army brat, Morton was honored to help pay tribute to soldiers like Valrey.

”I think slowly but surely, Black soldiers, not only from Korea, but from World War II, are finally getting the kind of recognition they deserve. For the longest time, in any war films, you seldom saw Black soldiers, or Black airmen, in any kind of conflict. So it’s easy for this country to believe that we were never part of that history.”

Says Morton of the Memorial Day tribute, “When we filmed it, some of the Rangers were sitting to my right and at the end I was able to shake their hands and congratulate them. It’s a beautiful ceremony. I was telling the story of someone with great courage who was willing to put his life on the line. I just hope people take the time to watch it and understand that when these conflicts have happened and America has taken part, that more often than not, there have been Black soldiers who have been part of it.”

The actor at one point considered joining the Air Force himself, but was told that because he had to wear glasses, being a pilot was not an option. (The Air Force has since revised its rules and will now allow candidates without 20/20 vision to become pilots.)

“My father had a very large impression on me, so I think whenever I’ve played a military character, he’s certainly foremost in my mind,” he shares of his father, who passed away when he was only 10.

“Even when I was in ‘Scandal’ and I was playing Rowan, a lot of who that man was and his determination to guard the republic was very much who my father was.” Joe Morton has directed episodes of “Scandal,” “Bull,” and “God Friended Me” and is planning on directing and producing a film about Eugene Jacques Bullard, the first Black military aviator, who heroically fought for France, but ended up as an elevator operator at Radio City Music Hall.

Morton, who is now 73, has seen the military make huge strides in improving equity for Black servicemen and women: “I was watching the news today and the retired General Honoré was one of the people who was talking about what happened on January 6, so I think that says a great deal,” he says.

He was also happy to reconnect with former Secretary of State Colin Powell at this year’s ceremony. “I portrayed him in a play [2004’s “Stuff Happens”], and he is a huge example of how things have changed,” he says of the retired four-star general.

The National Memorial day Concert will be hosted by Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna and air on Sunday, May 30th on PBS at 8:00 P.M. ET.

May 28, 2021 admin

Former Vietnam nurse Diane Carlson Evans will be honored this Memorial Day

The National Memorial Day Concert will pay tribute to the more than 265,000 nurses who served during Vietnam, including Diane Carlson Evans who advocated for women to have a place of honor in Washington D.C.

By Sharon Knolle

The National Memorial Day Concert, airing on PBS, will pay tribute to among its other honorees, the nurses who served in Vietnam. Former Army nurse Diane Carlson Evans, without whom we wouldn’t have the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, spoke to us about why she fought for 10 years for a memorial honoring the women who served alongside the male soldiers in Vietnam.

Like other Vietnam War veterans, Diane Carlson Evans did not talk about her experiences after serving from 1968 to 1969: “Many of us hid our experience and decided it was too painful to talk about.”

When the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in 1982, Carlson Evans, who lives in Montana, made the journey to D.C. to see the memorial in person. She looked for the name of one of her patients and the name of Sharon Lane, a nurse who was killed in Vietnam in June of 1969.

“I found their names and it was a turning point for me personally, because I now began to identify myself as a Vietnam veteran,” she says. “Very few people knew I had been there because I didn’t tell them.”

In 1984, a second statue was added next to Maya Lin’s memorial, “The Three Soldiers,” which shows three men in uniform looking at the names on the memorial wall.

Diane Carlson Evans shares, “It was that statue that started me thinking that we don’t see women who served during wartime. We don’t read many stories about them, there haven’t been many images of them, we’re not much in the history books or movies. I thought to myself, ‘If there’s going to be a statue that looks like men, there needs to be one that looks like women. If they belong there, we belong there. We went to Vietnam to help bring them home. That was our job as nurses.”

She found a sculptor to make a prototype and, with a group of likeminded allies, presented it to the Commision of Fine Arts in D.C. “They flat out rejected the idea,” she says, recalling her shock that they would not want to honor the women who cared for and comforted the soldiers.

“Women didn’t have to go. We were volunteers,” Diane Carlson Evans points out. “Women have never been conscripted into the armed forces. We signed up. We still do. Back then, they weren’t sending women into combat, but they sent nurses into combat. Nurses have died in all of our wars. That was part of my proposal, these were women who signed up and put themselves in peril to help our fellow soldiers, who were, at the time, all men.”

The reaction from the all-male panel?

A statue honoring women was “unnecessary” and its addition would “demolish” the integrity of the existing memorials. The commission’s chairman went so far as to say that if they decided to allow women to have a statue at the memorial, they
would have to allow the K9 corps to have theirs as well. “He just put us in the same category as dogs,” says Carlson Evans, who still shakes her head in disbelief.

“Maya Lin’s design was complete,” she says of the Wall. “It included the eight female nurses who died. She didn’t forget them. The statue of the three men, I felt, made the memorial incomplete, because once again the women were invisible.” Despite the rejection, she persisted. She recruited women from all 50 states to send letters to the commissioners and the federal agencies who could greenlight the memorial. They eventually got Congress, which supersedes the Commission of Fine Arts, to pass two bills to approve the site. “Then we had to fight for the design,” she says.

The first statue concept was rejected, so the nonprofit project behind the women’s memorial held a design competition. “That’s how we found Glenna Goodacre in New Mexico, a woman who captured the essence of our service,” she says.

When she returned to present the new design, it was with the backing of fellow veterans’ groups, including the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, Vietnam Veterans of America, and the Military Purple Hearts: “I had gone to every single convention and implored them for their support and they got behind us. Tens of thousands of the male veterans got behind us.”

On November 11, 1993, the memorial was finally dedicated. It portrays three women caring for an injured male soldier, one cradling him in an homage to Michaelangelo’s Pietà.

“It took 10 years,” Carlson Evans says. “You know what they say about women having to work longer and harder to prove ourselves.”

Her book, “Healing Wounds,” was released last year on Memorial Day. “I went to Vietnam to heal the wounds of war,” she says, adding, “that healing continues until we pass on to the other side. I do it on an everyday basis.”

While serving in Vietnam, she was aware that her life could end at any moment.

“I knew I wasn’t bulletproof. Our hospital was rocketed and mortared frequently,” she says. “Once you’re in that warzone and you’re doing your job, you just forget about yourself. The patients come first. You do whatever it takes to protect them. That was our mission. When there was incoming, we grabbed our helmets and our flak jackets and we got to work. We threw mattresses on top of patients who couldn’t get under the beds on their own. When we saw that all our patients were taken care of, then we would go for cover.

She laughs, “This idea that women can’t be in combat because they’re a bunch of ‘shrinking violets’ and the men will have to take care of them and won’t get anything done? No. In Vietnam, no man was taking care of us. We were there taking care of the men. We were there to bring them home alive. It wasn’t the other way around.”

Actress Kathy Baker will tell the incredible story of Diane Carlson Evans at the National Memorial Day Concert, which airs on PBS Sunday, May 30th, at 8:00 P.M. ET.

May 27, 2021 admin

Mary McCormack on the PBS National Memorial Day Concert

The show must go on! The 31st National Memorial Day Concert will take place this year, but will look very different. Mary McCormack, who has appeared on the show four times now, explains what some of the notable changes are.

By: Heather Newgen

For the last three decades, PBS has beautifully honored American military heroes on their award-winning National Memorial Day Concert, and the tradition continues. While the event, which is attended by hundreds of thousands of people, is typically held on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol Building, this year it will be aired as a virtual concert. Longtime hosts Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna are returning, as well as Mary McCormack.

“This year they added a section honoring the people on the frontlines of the COVID crisis, so that’s pretty incredible. I think it’s going to be really moving. It’s always really moving, but I think this year it may be even more moving in a different way because it’s going on when all this is happening,” McCormack told The Voluntourist.

The former West Wing star added, “My dad was a Marine, long before I was born, but you grow up with a sense of gratitude and reverence for what the militaries does and their families. This year I get to do a tribute to the Gold Star families, which is such an honor because they are also giving so much. We forget about how much they’re giving to all of us. It’s a real honor to be a part of it. In this climate in America, where everything is right now angry and dangerous and partisan and heated, this is a non-partisan, as it should be. I think because of that it’s really healing. It’s nice to feel something that we can all get behind together.”

The 90-minute show will include performances by “Harriet” star Cynthia Erivo, Renée Fleming, three-time Grammy nominee Trace Adkins, 12 -time Grammy Award winner CeCe Winans, Hamilton star Christopher Jackson and the National Symphony Orchestra.

In addition, A-listers like George Clooney, Jennifer Garner, Gwyneth Paltrow, Julianne Moore, Mark Wahlberg and more will deliver pre-taped messages to the troops.

The National Memorial Day Concert will air on Sunday, May 24, at 8/7c on PBS.

May 24, 2020 admin

How Special Forces Officer Romulo Camargo, paralyzed in combat, gives back to other veterans

Romulo Camargo proves a paralyzing bullet can’t stop him from living life and giving back to others.

By: Heather Newgen

Romulo “Romy” Camargo always knew he’d serve his country and at 19 he joined the military where he spent most of his time in the Special Operations community with the 75th Ranger Regiment and 7th Special Forces Group. On his third deployment in Afghanistan, the Chief Warrant Officer volunteered to help deliver humanitarian aid to a local village after his mission was canceled. A mishap took place when the bucket loader they were using to repair roads flipped. ‘We had to destroy the bucket loader so it would be inoperable so the insurgents wouldn’t take the parts from it. Once we destroyed the bucket loader we were returning to base and that’s when we were ambushed,” Camargo told The Voluntourist.

The Green Beret was hit in the back of his neck. “Chief is down. Chief is down,” is all I remember hearing from that moment,” Camargo said. His medic rushed to him and performed an emergency tracheotomy in the middle of crossfire, while the other soldiers fought back against the insurgents. His team stabilized Camargo and he was medevaced to Germany, but nobody expected him to live.

12 years later, the highly decorated officer is not only alive, but giving back to wounded veterans. Camargo is paralyzed from the shoulders down, but that isn’t stopping him from living life and serving others.

He believes he’s been given a second chance at life and takes the opportunity to share his blessing with others. He started the non-profit Stay in Step, which is dedicated to helping people with spinal cord injuries. The facility is uniquely designed to focus on mental and physical well-being and to accommodate patients families.

His wife Gaby, whom he met in Venezuela when they were 12-years-old, has been by his side through it all, and the two have relied on their faith to cope with the sacrifices and life changes, which have helped make their family that much stronger.

Camargo’s story will be featured on the National Memorial Day Concert this Sunday on PBS, and The Voluntourist had the chance to talk with the couple.

Romulo Camargo Romulo and Gaby Camargo
Photo by Romy Camargo

The Voluntourist: You were first honored at the National Memorial Day Concert in 2015. What was that experience like for you?

Romulo Camargo: I couldn’t believe it. It was very humbling and it was an honor for us to be honored there in 2015. My medic was there, who did the emergency tracheotomy and my other teammate who rolled me over and called the medics was also there as well.

The Voluntourist: It must have been such a nice surprise to hear PBS is telling your story again this year.

Romulo Camargo: Yeah. So they’ll be retelling my story again. And when they told me it was an honor again. It was a blessing to be able to be honored in a concert, as big as the PBS National Memorial Day Concert is. I’m just glad to have my story out there and to be able to show the world what we can do, when to take adversity and change it into a good thing.

The Voluntourist: Is that what you want people to take away from your story?

The Voluntourist: Yes, ma’am. It’s how you take that adversity and change it into a good story of hope and strength and honoring commitment.

The Voluntourist: I understand you wanted to join the military after watching your brothers graduate from Airborne School. What was so significant about that event for you?

Romulo Camargo: I always looked up to my brothers. I thought it would be a perfect moment, that I decided to join the military as well, probably in their footsteps or whatnot.

The Voluntourist: How old were you when you joined?

Romulo Camargo: I was 19.

The Voluntourist: And you did three separate tours in Afghanistan?

Romulo Camargo: Yes, I was traveling extensively through Central and South America at first and then we went to Afghanistan in 2005, 2007, and 2008

The Voluntourist: 2008 is when the incident took place, correct?

Romulo Camargo: Yes, ma’am, we’re ambushed on September 16, 2008. I received a gunshot wound to the back of the head.

The Voluntourist: How old were you at that time?

Romulo Camargo: 33.

The Voluntourist: Can you take me back to the day of the ambush and explain what happened, to the best of your knowledge?

Romulo Camargo: So, we were conducting humanitarian mission down in Zabul province, Afghanistan and while we were conducting the mission, we were ambushed and while I was directing fires, I received the gunshot wound to the back of the head, right behind the ear and it hit my C3 vertebrae and I was paralyzed from the shoulders down, and then my medic came and did an emergency tracheotomy and got me breathing again. My team members came, packaged me up, put me on a medevac bird. [I went] from the battlefield to Kandahar, Kandahar to Bagram, Bagram to Germany, Germany to Walter Reed. All in three days.

The Voluntourist: And Gaby, take me back to the day that you were told about what happened.

Gaby Camargo: I received a phone call on September 16th, around 11:30 a.m. I wasn’t at home at that time and it was one of his teammates. He wasn’t deployed with Romulo. He was in Fort Bragg. So basically he was the one in charge. He was the one that Romulo told if something happened to me, you will be in charge with telling Gaby everything. So I received a phone call around 11:30 a.m, it was him and he was asking me if I was at home. I told him, “No, I’m not at home because I was buying some supplies for my birthday.” My birthday is on September 19th and that was September 16th. So as soon as I received the phone call, I had this weird feeling that I had at that moment. So I told him, “Is everything okay?” And he told me, “Yes, everything’s okay. I have a package for you from Romulo. So, I need to see you.” And I told him, “I’ll be back in 20 minutes.” And that’s how I did it. So when I got home, I would say 10 minutes later, someone was knocking on the door. And when I went to open the door, it was him and two other military people wearing the uniform, and of course, I was in shock. So after a few minutes, that I was crying and all of that, they told me what happened to Romulo. They told me he was running his team, they were ambushed and he was shot in the back of his head. And I was asking them, “How is he doing? Is he alive?” And they told me that they didn’t know. The only thing that they told me is they’re doing their best and we will keep you posted with everything. So they stayed with me, I would say, 30 minutes and then they left. After they left, 25 minutes later, I received another phone call and they told me, “He’s stable. We don’t know his condition, but at least he’s stable. And they are transferring him from a local hospital to a bigger hospital in Afghanistan.” And that was on September 16th. And then of course, like he just said, he arrived here in the States three days later, on my birthday, September 19th. So, he was my best gift.

The Voluntourist: Gaby, I understand that you felt like this situation was part of a bigger plan and that you could turn this around to help others. Romy did you feel the same?

Romulo Camargo: Well, once I was stable, I started talking to all the other wounded warriors, helping them out, and just taking them through what I went through and sitting down with them and talking about how the recovery process would be and give them some motivation, being there for them. Being an advocate for all the other wounded warriors that I came in contact with.

The Voluntourist: Is that how you came about starting your organization?

Romulo Camargo: Well, Gaby and I started talking about that because the system didn’t have anything in place in Tampa that provided long term free implementation that we provide. So Gaby and I went off in that venture with a couple of mentors. We created Stay In Steps brain and spinal cord injury recovery.

Gaby Camargo: Heather, let me compliment what Romulo just told you. Number one, he has been more than 18 months as an inpatient at the VA hospital here in Tampa. When we were there, it’s not that I want to talk about us, but we were very, very proactive. Always looking for new procedures, always looking for new resources available for him, and of course, family members. So that was Romy and I for 18 months. So after Romulo was discharged, of course my husband, he worked in the special operations community his whole life. So my husband, he wanted to do more in the system. Unfortunately, they weren’t prepared for that. We were looking for more options and in 2011, we’d be teaching in a STEM cells procedure. Romulo became the first active duty in the nation receiving a STEM cell transplant. When we come back from Europe because the procedure was done in Europe, in Lisbon, Portugal, when we came back, we were looking for an aggressive rehabilitation. So back then, he was doing rehab at the VA Tampa, but we needed something more. And that’s why we decided to look for new options, new rehab centers around the Tampa Bay area, we didn’t find any. And we found one in Orlando. So we decided, let’s go to Orlando twice a week so you can conduct therapy in Orlando and at the same time, you will be doing therapy here at the VA. So basically he was doing therapy five days a week, intense in Orlando two days and three days here in Tampa. But we did it for two and a half years, but I would say after the first six months I told Romulo, we have to be realistic. This is a lifetime for you, we need to do something here in Tampa. There’s a gap in the health care system in Tampa, let’s do something about it. Tampa, we have one of the biggest base in the country, which is Macdill, we’re still fighting a war, Afghanistan, Iran, more wounded warriors are coming back home and the system is not prepared for them. So we decided to do something about it and it took us a year and a half to raise the funds and open the center. Our motivation, basically was to see that the health care system wasn’t offering them everything that they needed. My husband is a warrior and he will be a soldier forever. So basically the system, it was limiting him, what options can I do, you know? So that’s why we decided to do something about it.

The Voluntourist: Can you both talk about how your faith has played a part in this situation?

Gaby Camargo: Heather, that’s everything. Let’s put it like that. If I go back to the first day they told me this is what happened to Romulo. Well, you can imagine, when they told me that I was crying, but after a few minutes I told them, “Look, I believe in the Lord and you will see my husband will be my best gift.” And he was. So faith, for Romy and I, is everything. That’s our motivation to get up every morning knowing that something good is going to happen. That every time that we have our moments, that we feel down, that we have been seeing the same thing, the same picture for 11 years. But then you get up the next morning, you remember the scripture and everything that we have been learning through the years and that’s our motivation to keep moving forward. I’m a lawyer in my country. I’m an attorney in Venezuela. Romulo is the military, but the reality is that your background, career doesn’t matter. When you live something like this, in reality like this one. Every day, that doesn’t matter. It’s all about faith and hope. That’s your gas. There’s no way that you can overcome any adversity in life if you don’t have God. That’s the way that I see it.

Romulo Camargo: I would say I wasn’t really a believer until I got shot that day. The Lord Jesus Christ brought me down to my knees. I started believing more and with Gaby we’ve put that in our lifestyle ever since I got shot. For me, it has has given me the strength to be able to have handled it for the last 12 years and being able to share with some of our clients that go to Stay in Step. So for me it’s really helpful.

The Voluntourist: Romy, what’s been the hardest part of all of this for you?

Romulo Camargo: The hardest part is just trying to see, just being there, trying to see movement and just keeping on, keep going hundred percent towards my rehab. Being able to be here for my family, my children. Just being here and trying to keep doing physical therapy three to four times a week and just keep going, keep going that constant.

The Voluntourist: A lot of people would have given up. To be told that you’re going to be paralyzed for the rest of your life and things are going to be a lot different from now on. A lot of people would have given up, but what makes you keep going?

Romulo Camargo: You make it a lifestyle. And being a C3, which is one of the highest level of cervical injury that we’ll be able to be out and about without a ventilator and whatnot. I just have to keep going and keep pushing myself just to stay healthy and to keep the lifestyle that I’ve been living for the last 12 years. I’ve got to be here for my family, I have to be a husband, a father, a brother, a teammate. So, that’s what keeps me going. And the Lord Jesus Christ keeps giving me that strength to keep going and doing what I’ve been doing for the last 12 years.

To see more of Camargo’s story, watch the 2020 National Memorial Day Concert Sunday, May 24 at 8/7c on PBS.

May 23, 2020 admin

Exclusive: Trace Adkins on honoring veterans and performing at the National Memorial Day Concert

Country star Trace Adkins will perform at the National Memorial Day Concert on PBS for his fifth time and reveals how this year will be different due to COVID-19, but equally as meaningful and celebratory in honoring veterans.

By Heather Newgen

Trace Adkins isn’t letting quarantine restrictions deter his support for the troops. The National Memorial Day Concert is one of PBS’ highest rated shows and will go on as scheduled, but with a few noticeable changes. The event draws hundreds of thousands of people to the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol Building, but this year the tributes and performances will be filmed separately in accordance with social distancing guidelines–something Adkins didn’t mind.

“For me, it was less of a challenge than it has been in the past because there was no live audience and if I screwed up I got to do it over again. In the past I walked out on stage to 200,000 people, so it’s like being in a pressure cooker. This time it was way easier,” he laughed.

But that doesn’t mean the three-time Grammy nominee didn’t miss the fans.

“It was very strange. I got on top of a building with the Capitol Dome in the background and we had a skeleton camera crew. They played the tracks and I sang. It was surreal. I looked down and there was literally nobody there. This is my fifth time performing at the Memorial Day Concert. Every year that I’ve performed you walk out and there’s the orchestra and thousands of people in front of you. It’s awesome and just an awe-inspiring setting. This time it was different, but still I think we approached it with the same reverence and the same tone. Hopefully this show will remind people what this holiday is about. It’s about the most important holiday because if it wasn’t for this one, we wouldn’t be able to celebrate all the other ones. That’s the goal we had going into this and hopefully this will help remind people they should take a moment and pay tribute to the people who have sacrificed so much for us,” he exclusively told The Voluntourist.

Adkins has always advocated for veterans and is happy to celebrate them every chance he gets.

“I was thrilled to be asked to be a part of this. I was really happy they were going forward with it and going to do the show. It’s always a privilege and the highlight of my year to be part of this show. This year, I think especially. It provides some perspective. We’re going through a strange time but there have been generations before us who have been asked to sacrifice way more than we’re being asked to sacrifice. The times have been tougher on a much bigger scale and I think we need to be reminded of that. This too shall pass.”

He added, “It’s always been a privilege to work with veteran organizations and it’s really been the most meaningful thing that I’ve done in my career. I don’t expect to stop doing it.”

A few weeks ago Trace Adkins dropped his new single “Better Off,” which has already garnered over two million streams. But, don’t expect to see him perform it on the National Memorial Day Concert.

“It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to go out there and do my new single. I did “Still A Soldier” and “Til the Sun Comes Up.” I think those songs hit the right notes and help people get the right frame of mind for this Memorial Day weekend.”

The National Memorial Day Concert will air on PBS Sunday, May 24 at 7 p.m. CT. The concert also will stream on Facebook, YouTube and pbs.org.

May 22, 2020 admin

D-Day Survivor Ray Lambert recounts Omaha Beach horror and why he was apprehensive to share his story

For a long time, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Ray Lambert remained silent about fighting in World War II and the historic D-Day invasion where he single-handedly saved over a dozen men. But the last few years, the 99-year-old former medic has been very candid about what took place during the war so the American soldiers who died won’t be forgotten.

By: Heather Newgen

By the time he was 23, Ray Lambert had fought in North Africa, where he earned the Silver Star after driving a jeep into enemy gunfire to get his troops out; he went to combat in Sicily, and in June of 1944 he joined roughly 73,000 Americans for what would be his third and final invasion: D-Day, the turning point of WWII that helped lead to the defeat of the Nazi forces in Europe.

Seventy-five years ago, Lambert, who was part of the First Division’s famed 16th Infantry Regiment, hit the cold, gray shores of Omaha Beach with the first wave of troops. His brother Bill served alongside him and the two Alabama natives made a pact to take care of each other’s families should something happen. The brothers parted ways upon arrival in Normandy and with bullets flying towards their packed Higgins boat, Lambert jumped out and began pulling drowning injured soldiers to land.

The Staff Sergeant was hit but he didn’t stop.

“Something went through my right elbow and that kind of shattered my elbow and caused some bleeding. I kept working and didn’t pay much attention to that. I saw a guy hung up on barbed wire. I went in to get him off the barbed wire and had a difficult time. I got him loose and something hit me in the thigh, halfway between my hip and knee. It knocked a big hole [in my leg] almost to the bone and actually kind of knocked me down. I got up and put a tourniquet on just above the wound. I told one of my corporals to try to get more men over to the big rock so they could save them and treat them,” he told The Voluntourist.

But not even two serious injuries stopped the army medic. He continued on his mission.

“I was bleeding very badly and getting weaker, but I saw a guy’s arms up in the water. I realized he was in trouble and went there to get him. When I got to him his equipment was also hung up in the barbed wire and an underwater mine had been set off and he had some injuries. I got him with my right arm, the one that was shattered, and had that around him. I was working with my left hand and finally after going down twice in the water I got him out.”

He added, “As I turned to go back towards the beach, a Higgins boat came in and when he dropped his ramp it hit me in the back and pushed us both right to the bottom. It crushed the lower part of my back and I thought for sure we were both going to die. I said a prayer. I asked God to give me one more chance to save this person. For some reason unknown to any of us, that ramp rolled up and the boat moved to a different spot. My guess is the boat was in the wrong place where fire power was coming in. It was so heavy that they decided to move down the beach. I got the guy out and got him back up. By then I was in terrible shape. I was bleeding terribly bad so I passed out on the beach.”

A few hours later Lambert woke up on a landing ship and his brother Bill, who had also been shot, was next to him. Both went home.

The Voluntourist first talked with Mr. Lambert, a four time Purple Heart receipt, last year in Washington D.C. at the National Memorial Day Concert on PBS where he was celebrated for his countless acts of courage and bravery, something he’s very humble about. We recently had the chance to follow up and speak with him again.

The Voluntourist: Last year you were honored at the National Memorial Day Concert and this year your story will be told again on the show by Sam Elliot. What was it like to attend the event?

Ray Lambert: It was very touching to me to sit there and listen to the story and it brought back so many memories of my guys. Also I was very proud that I had been able to accomplish and live through those things that now it seems to be important to people and young people. I always have mixed feelings when listening to some of the things that I’ve done, things that have happened to me. But that was just a wonderful day to be there. Then later of course meeting people from Fox I talked to and you, that was a lot of fun also. I’m always happy to do what I can to bring back memories to other veterans. They’re all so important and it’s getting down to just a few of my era and generation. I was in North Africa, Sicily and D-Day. From the 1st Division, I don’t think there’s over two of us left that was in all three invasions, so it’s always interesting to hear the younger people I talk to ask questions about those three invasions.

The Voluntourist: I understand you were apprehensive to tell your story. Why?

Ray Lambert: There’s two reasons. One is, you don’t like to remember how people were torn apart and those kind of things, you just don’t like to talk about it for a long time. I had no intentions of ever talking about it again, but when I realized they couldn’t do their own talking, their families never knew how things were really because their sons and daughters were killed. That’s when I thought it was a responsibility that I thought I owed to families, other families, that didn’t get their sons and daughters back. Then I started talking more about it and the more I talked about it, the better it makes me feel that those guys who died on the battlefield have some representation that were there also and can tell people how it was, how brave they were and how they just kept going day and night, never complaining and just doing their job.

The Voluntourist: Is that when you decided to write your book Every Man a Hero?

Ray Lambert: Yes, because today the word hero doesn’t seem to be as important as it was years ago. I know there are plenty of heroes out there today, but when soldiers lived the way they did in the woods like animals and faced death every single day, then kept moving forward and forward. We knew we were going to lose 15 percent of the guys in every company. So you just go in trying to do your job and not think of getting killed. You just walk into the danger every minute of every day. I wanted people to know the story of those guys.

The Voluntourist: I understand people suggested the title of the book should be Ray Lambert a Hero, but you wouldn’t go for it.

Ray Lambert: Yes, when they wanted to do the book they were talking about Ray Lambert the hero and I said, “no, no way am I going to do that. My men were all heroes and they all did their job and faced the same danger.” Some of us did a few things that others didn’t, but still every man that made that D-Day invasion was a hero in my opinion.

The Voluntourist: Absolutely! How often do you think of Normandy and the men you were with in battle?

Ray Lambert: Almost every day. Just a few minutes ago I was thinking about the guys and how they never lived to see their grandchildren and great grandchildren, or to have a home or married life. It will never leave me. There’s so many that I knew from 1940 through Africa and through Sicily. We’re all like a family and it gives me a lot of good feeling and satisfaction to think about all the guys we knew and had so many laughs with and so many sad moments too.

The Voluntourist: You arrived to Normandy in the front of a cramped Higgins boat where you were shot at the moment you hit the shore. Do you remember the ride there? What were you thinking, feeling?

Ray Lambert: I had been on two other invasions, so I knew what to expect, but going in the water was very rough and everyone got seasick. Everyone was throwing up all over the place and the wind was blowing it back. If you weren’t seasick, you’d get sick from all the stuff going on. Some of the guys were very quiet. One guy was standing right behind me and he was saying some things from the Bible and I couldn’t understand him because the noise was really rough, but I know he was doing that. There was one guy trying to move around in the boat. It was very crowded. There was a lot of concern because we knew exactly what we were going to get into, but it was of course a lot worse than we thought. It was a time where your mind was pretty much tied to the job you were going to have to do.

The Voluntourist: How aware were you that winning the invasion was pivotal to winning the war?

Ray Lambert: We had been told that this was “do or die” as we used to say. If we didn’t make it, there was a good chance that all of our guys would be destroyed and that the war would probably be lost. That’s what General Eisenhower and the other guys were talking about. We had to do this and it was an awful responsibility to put on young guys. We had guys that were 17, 18, 19-years-old. We knew we had to do our job.

The Voluntourist: You’ve seen so much tragic untimely death, what makes you keep going after everything you’ve experienced?

Ray Lambert: The enjoyment I get of doing something hopefully for someone else, and to make someone else smile or laugh. It makes me feel good. I’ll be 100-years-old November 26th, and I can’t do some of the things I did, but I still enjoy being with people and I still enjoy talking about my men and the fun that we had. One of best friends was Howard [Buck] Shute. He was a captain. He and his wife and my wife were all close friends back in the forties. The only two people left out of that group now is [me and] Buck Shute’s wife Florence. She lives in New Jersey and she’s a year older than I am. I talked to her last week. She and I have conservations about the old days and things that went on. We all had no money and used to get cheese and crackers from the mess hall and have that for our evening meal sometimes. All those kind of wonderful things that happened to us when we were young and all together. That keeps me going. I just feel every time if I can call Florence and talk to her it’s going back to my oldest friend that I have still living. We just always laugh about things. It’s the energy that I get from other people and knowing that I may have an opportunity to do something for someone else–those are the things that keep me going.

To see more of Lambert’s story, watch the 2020 National Memorial Day Concert Sunday, May 24 at 8/7c on PBS.

May 20, 2020 admin

Gary Sinise on taking a break from Hollywood and advocating for U.S. Troops

On Monday we pause to honor the selfless men and women who fight to keep the United States safe, but Gary Sinise doesn’t just honor the U.S. Armed Forces on Veterans Day, he’s been celebrating them for decades. 25 years ago the actor played the iconic role of Lt. Dan Taylor — a platoon leader who loses his legs in the Vietnam War and struggles with alcoholism and mental illness in the Oscar- winning film Forrest Gump. Since then the actor has dedicated his life to serving U.S. military veterans and their families.

By: Heather Newgen | Twitter: @hnvoluntourist

In an exclusive sit down interview with The Voluntourist, Gary Sinise talks about his passion for helping veterans, his Lt. Dan Band and how Forrest Gump was not only a career changer, but sparked his commitment to supporting the Armed Forces.

WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 27: Co-host Gary Sinise and Silver Star recipient Leigh Ann Hester pose for photo during the finale of the 2018 National Memorial Day Concert at U.S. Capitol, West Lawn on May 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Capital Concerts)

The Voluntourist: You’ve hosted the National Memorial Day Concert for thirteen years now. Why is the event important for you to be a part of?

Gary Sinise: 2005 was my first year. I was doing USO tours and I had been on several handshake tours, that is when I just go out and shake hands, take pictures, and visit with the troops. Then I started taking the band and we’ve done some tours to Asia and around the States. I was doing quite a bit and Joe Mantegna, my buddy, knew about that and he was involved with the concert a few years before that. He invited me to come do a segment on the USO. They were planning to highlight the USO in one of their segments and so he said “come and play and you will be a part of that segment”. We brought the band here and the band was very early. We started playing our first things in 2003, but we really ramped it up in 2004. Next thing you know, we are overseas and on a USO tour to Europe. It was our first tour to Germany, Belgium, the UK, and the Netherlands. Then we had arranged to come straight here to be a part of the National Memorial Day Concert. It’s a huge crowd and it’s televised and we were very early in our evolution there. Being up on stage with all those people and everything was really something special. They also asked me, as long as I was coming, to narrate some segments throughout the show. So, I played and then I went on and I narrated things and got off and talked and was a part of the show as an actor. The following year, Joe and Jerry Colbert, who were producing, asked me to come back and co-host.

WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 29: Actors and co-hosts Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna onstage at the 27th National Memorial Day Concert on May 29, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Capitol Concerts)

The Voluntourist: You and Joe go way back. You’ve been friends since Chicago Theatre days, right?

Gary Sinise: We were acquaintances then. We became friends, real serious buddies, after we started working together. We were acquaintances, we knew each other from the Chicago stuff, we did a movie together back in the late 90s. It was the National Memorial Day Concert and my coming and spending time that kind of galvanized our relationship and really began to solidify. Joe is a big military supporter and I’m out there doing things, so I asked him to become an ambassador for my foundation, which he did. So he will do events with us and things like that whenever he can support. He’s been on “Criminal Minds” for a long time, so during the shooting season his time is limited. We have done various things together. This is our big weekend that we spend together every year.

The Voluntourist: You’ve done so many great TV shows and movies, but the last few years you haven’t been acting as much. Is that so you can focus more on your foundation and your work for the military?

Gary Sinise: It is a blessing to be able to say that because I’ve had some success on television, and if I hadn’t had that, the pressure would be on a lot more to go out there and continue pounding the pavement as an actor. I had a successful television series and then another couple years on “Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders.” Both “CSI: New York” and “Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders” put me in this place where I am financially secure and I can devote some of those resources to building this service mission, which is something I am very devoted to. I have a lot of veterans in my family. I’ve been around our wounded veterans for many years going back to the “Forrest Gump” days. I’ve supported Vietnam vets going back in the 80s. I’ve got Vietnam veterans in my family and in WWII, and on and on and on. After September 11th, I felt called to a mission of service and, shortly after that, I was handed this television series that gave me all kinds of resources that I could devote to this mission. So now, “Criminal Minds” went off the air in December 2016. Much like in between “CSI: New York” and “Criminal Minds” when I had two and a half years, I just devoted all that time to the foundation and my military service mission. That’s what I’m doing, traveling all around, trying to raise money and raise awareness, and trying to keep spirits up.

The Voluntourist: A lot of people in your position would not necessarily dedicate them to the activism, so why is that so important for you?

Gary Sinise: I’ve just met extraordinary people over the years who have inspired me and motivated me and taught me. I’ve learned so much from a lot of different people and I saw on that terrible day, that we all faced as a nation, our country kind of come together in response to that. Part of that was young men and women signing up to deploy to the war zone of Iraq and Afghanistan and they started getting hurt, they started getting killed. Having Vietnam veterans in my family and remembering what it was like for them to deploy to a war zone and come home to a nation that didn’t treat them very well and turn its back on them. It troubled me to think that we would face this terrible attack on our country, and we would be going into the 21st century war on terror and our defenders would not be taken care of. I wanted them to know that I supported them, so I just started going everywhere I could to make sure that they knew that. I started to raise my hand to support many military charities out there that are trying to help in many different ways, and getting involved in events that were raising awareness, much like the National Memorial Day Concert, which is a fantastic form to highlight and spotlight the sacrifices of our defenders. I just started doing that so much that it became clear that I should start my own foundation and over the years as that has all accumulated. It is clear that I feel somewhat called to this mission and that the resources that I’ve been given, the blessings I’ve been given of this nice career that I’ve had and the financial security that that’s provided me. There is a reason for it, beyond just spending it on myself and taking care of my family of course, which is a priority. But I’ve got plenty to do that and I’ve been able to devote a lot of those resources to creating a foundation. I’ve been able to go places where most Americans never would get to go, to the war zones and different places like that and see our military in action, so that I can come back and talk as an educated person about what they do and why we should support them. Having done that so much, it feels like that’s where my life is right now, and I need to continue to serve in some way. It doesn’t mean that I won’t act again. Right now, I’ve been blessed with a lot of good fortune and it is nice to be able to do something positive with it.

The Voluntourist: I know that the band is named after your character in Forrest Gump, but where did that idea come from?

Gary Sinise: When I started visiting our troops after September 11th in the war zones through the USO, this was prior to CSI: New York. I had done a fair number of films, but I was still kind of one of those faces that you recognize, and you’ve seen in movies before, but you are not sure what the name is. When folks would recognize me in the war zones and places like that, they would recognize me as Lt. Dan and would see that face. “Lt. Dan you’ve got legs” and start making jokes. I thought when I got the band going, I don’t want to see “Gary Sinise’s Band”. Well, who is Gary Sinise? I thought if I put Lt. Dan Band in there, they would kind of put it together. When I put Gary Sinise and Lt. Dan Band, they would kind of put two and two together and figure out “oh, it’s the real Lt. Dan who is coming to play for us.” Now, we play hundreds of shows for the men and women who serve our country, and our first responders. We play hospitals and on and on. We are well known within the military community for sure, because we have played on dozens of dozens of bases all around the world. I meet people who have seen us five times on different military bases. Now they know who Gary Sinise is and my television series was on for eleven years, so we don’t have the same issue with people wondering who that is. I think early on, it made real good sense and the other reason is that that character represents something positive to our military folks. The story of Lt. Dan is really a great story, it is a resilient story, a story that had not been told about our Vietnam veterans up until that point. This is 1994 when the movie came out. Prior to that, there were Vietnam movies that had come out, but all the Vietnam veterans that were being portrayed in those movies were going through a lot of serious depression and things were not going well. At the end of the film, you would always wonder if those guys were going to be okay. At the end of Forrest Gump, you know Lt. Dan is okay. That is what we want. We want our soldiers to come home from war and move on with their lives and be successful and have businesses and do alright. We’ve never seen that story before of a Vietnam veteran. It’s a resilient story, it’s a positive story, and that’s the story they [troops] want. If they get out the service, they want to know there is life after their service, and there is a good life ahead and that’s one of the nice things I like about the story; that he is okay in the end.

The Voluntourist: When did you realize he was going to be such a huge positive impact on the community?

Gary Sinise: The movie was so popular in 1994 and that changed a lot of things for me as an actor. I hadn’t done that many movies prior to Forrest Gump. I’d only done a few, so nobody knew who I was at that point. But I got a call from the Disabled American Veterans organization, the DAV, about four weeks after the movie came out. The DAV have 1.5 million disabled veterans that are a part of that organization and, at that time, they were going all the way back to WWII. These are wounded guys and gals who were banged up in service and they were a part of the DAV organization. I didn’t know anything about them, but they’ve been around for ninety years or something like that. They contacted me and invited me to come to their national convention. They wanted to give me an award for playing Lt. Dan. I walked out on stage and there were 2,000 wounded veterans in the audience, and they were all clapping and applauding and everything. I realized at that time, this character represents something really positive to them. That’s why they have asked me to come to their national convention. They gave me their National Commanders Award for playing an injured veteran in a positive way and bringing the wounded veteran back into the consciousness of the American people. When you think about that, why should we have to bring the wounded veteran back into the consciousness of the American people? They aren’t always at the forefront of our thinking. They serve, they get banged up, and they disappear. Lt. Dan sort of brought them back. In some way they felt that Lt. Dan and the positive story was bringing that wounded soldier, their stories, to life in a positive way. I realized that for our veteran community, at that time, this character was bigger than just a movie part I was playing. This was their story and it has been that way ever since.

November 10, 2019 admin

How ‘Hamilton’ Star Christopher Jackson Advocates for Autism

Christopher Jackson and his wife Veronica became advocates for autism and serve on the National Board of KultureCity, a nonprofit that helps provide sensory-inclusive rooms and support for families and individuals, following their son’s autism diagnosis in 2007.

By: Heather Newgen

Christopher Jackson is doing his part to ensure autistic people can enjoy a live stage show, which can oftentimes be a struggle for people on the spectrum. Autistics can find it difficult to engage in social settings and Jackson is doing what he can to support the community.

“As someone in the arts, I perform in certain venues and to be able to make all of these venues sensory inclusive so that a sibling, a spouse, a relative, a friend, they can participate. You don’t have to stay hidden away and feel like they can’t join the rest of society in the way that they want to. They can have the freedom to move about and if they happen to need some help in the midst of that we’re there to do that,” he told The Voluntourist at the 30th Anniversary of PBS National Memorial Day Concert where he paid tribute to the military.

WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 26: Broadway and television star Christopher Jackson performs at the 2019 National Memorial Day Concert at U.S. Capitol, West Lawn on May 26, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Capital Concerts Inc.)

His son, CJ, was diagnosed with autism at an early age, and Jackson and his wife made it their mission to help others.

“I’m involved with an organization called KultureCity and what we do is we go into concert venues, arenas and we build sensory inclusive rooms for folks who need that support. Children with autism, my son is autistic, but also soldiers–veterans who have sensory issues, PTSD, who want to go out and participate in the world, but sometimes need a break. We build sensory rooms where someone can just go and decompress a little bit and still be a part of it.”

He continued, “We also create sensory bags that have noise cancellation headphones, they have fidget toys that can help desensitize a little bit so that families, people who have sensory needs can be met. We also train the staff of the venues and arenas so that when someone is in distress, you have someone there who can guide them where they need to go and offer some sort of support.”

The Tony-nominated Broadway star who originated the role of George Washington in ‘Hamilton’ is all about using his platform to bring awareness to autism.

“People need help and people need to know they are regarded and that there’s a place for them. This helps us do that.”

To see Jackson perform at the National Memorial Day Concert click here.

June 3, 2019 admin Leave a comment

Vietnam Veterans Brad Kennedy and Ernest “Pete” Peterson: “We’re All Blood Brothers”

After an unexpected contentious return home from the Vietnam War 50 years ago, Brad Kennedy and Ernest “Pete” Peterson finally get the welcoming home they deserve at the 30 Anniversary of the PBS National Memorial Day Concert. Although the spotlight was on their longstanding friendship and heroic sacrifices, the Vietnam veterans used the opportunity to spread several key messages such as, “We can not let the memory of these guys who died and served be forgotten.”

By: Heather Newgen @hnvoluntourist

It’s just two hours until show time and Kennedy and Peterson, who were both honored, eagerly awaited in the lobby of a busy Washington D.C hotel stylishly dressed anticipating sharing their story. As we enter a private room to chat, Kennedy jokes, “When I met Joe Mantegna he gives me a big embrace and I whispered in his ear, “Joe, I don’t want you to take this personally, but I really had requested Dennis Haysbert to portray me” [at the PBS National Memorial Day Concert] He sort of pushed me away a little bit, smiled and said, “We drew straws and you lost,” Mantegna teased back.

WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 26: Acclaimed actor Dennis Haysbert (L) and Tony Award-winner Joe Mantegna (R) onstage at the 2019 National Memorial Day Concert at U.S. Capitol, West Lawn on May 26, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Capital Concerts Inc.)

It’s easy to see why the men are friends. They’re both funny, highly intelligent, articulate, easy going, but understandably emotional and serious when talking about their time in Vietnam. While serving together in the 11th U.S. Cavalry, an unshakable bond developed that deeply connects them and other Vietnam veterans together for life.

“Sometimes we were covered in blood and sometimes it was blood of our fellow soldiers. In other cases it was a Viet Cong blood mixing in with our blood. So we’re all blood brothers in a very real sense and we’ll never let that go,” Kennedy explained to The Voluntourist.

The two joined the military for different reasons, but came out with the same perspective, “the people who created this [war] realized they made a major mistake,” Peterson stated.

“Like a lot of blacks in the south we come from a tradition of military families because the army was a way out. Normally what would happen was you’d finish high school and you’d go into the service. If there wasn’t a war going on, you’d come out and then go to college. That’s how you got your tuition money. Unfortunately, Vietnam came along and wiped a lot of us out,” Peterson said.

He added, “Brad was the sharpest guy in the battalion. Brad had been to Drew University and he didn’t have to be out there with the enlisted guys. Brad could have been an officer, but he chose to come out there to be in the field and be an enlisted man.”

The admiration is mutual.

“I’m so glad to be doing this with him because he has wisdom and he always has. I was very happy to be associated with him then and serve with him and to have been reunited again after so many years. We have far more to unite us than what divides us,” Kennedy gushed about his friend.

When coming back from Vietnam, there were no parades in their honor, parties and or any sort of appreciation. Instead the troops were met with ridicule and anger.

“Upon 50 years reflection I’ve reduced what the American people need to hear about the Vietnam War to three things:

The first, they accept and recognize that when we went over there, we thought we were right.

The second thing is you can’t confuse the man with the mission, the soldier with the policy.

And lastly, whatever we did, for better or for worse, was done in the name of the American people and all Americans, even those who weren’t born at the time, share a responsibility for it. It doesn’t just fall on our shoulders. Until Americans make clear to Vietnam veterans they accept that responsibility there will never be harmony or peace in our minds.”

“We returned from Vietnam, nobody wanted to know what we had been through, and there’s a scene [in the PBS trailer] where it shows us as young guys over there in the jungle trying to take care of one another. Then there’s another scene where it shows us today–us old guys coming up from the wall and when I look at that I think, “Damn we’re still taking care of each other.” That meant a lot to me,” Peterson said.

A hostile return home wasn’t all Vietnam veterans encountered. Thousands faced serious health issues that couldn’t be explained.

“My biggest problem wasn’t that I was rejected. So many of us were coming home. We could take care of each other. Our problem was we didn’t want to admit there was something wrong with us. We lied to ourselves, we drank, we did anything except for admit there was something wrong with us. For those who went to the VA to see what was wrong they didn’t know. They played the game and said, “y’all got agent orange,” Peterson revealed.

Vietnam veterans also dealt with personal struggles.

“I had a busted marriage, I drank, everything you do to try to medicate yourself rather than saying to yourself something ain’t right up here. You work your way through it and that’s how we cope. We helped each other. Us young kids–we were just boys. We weren’t men, but when you see guys helping each other [in war] and then you fast forward 50 years and see some of these same guys pushing their brothers in wheelchairs, to me that speaks volumes about what we did for one another. We didn’t wait for the country. We realized they couldn’t really help us because they had to admit they screwed this up. Having said that, I’m still pro military. I still believe in the United States because for me as a black man, the military has already been the forefront of social changes in this country.”

The Vietnam veterans were separated for a decades after the war, but they reunited a five years ago and get together every year.

“We see each other on Veterans’ Day and Memorial Day. We can not let the memory of these guys died and served be forgotten. George Santayana said that those who fail to remember or learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. The price is too steep to allow that to happen,” Kennedy said.

To see more of their story, watch the PBS National Memorial Day Concert here or watch on Demand until June 9, 2019.

May 30, 2019 admin Leave a comment

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