By Adam Smith

The North Jefferson News



Residents who want to pay tribute to Alabama soldiers killed in the Vietnam War were able to do so over the weekend.

The Alabama Vietnam Moving Memorial, stationed at the Vietnam Veterans of Amerca’s (VVA) Tarrant chapter, made a stop at Wal-Mart in Gardendale.

John McGuire, first vice president of the Tarrant chapter of the VVA, said the memorial travels all over the state. The monument, fashioned after the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, is made of the same Zimbabwe granite and contains the names of 1209 Alabama men and women who died in southeast Asia between 1959 and 1975.

McGuire served in Vietnam in 1972 as part of the 60th assault helicopter company. He said his unit supported South Korean troops in the Whitehorse Division. “It was our job to support them,” he said. “They took care of us. … I felt safer out there.”

McGuire, who transferred to the Tarrant VVA from Hawaii, said the monument helps families and veterans heal from emotional wounds that remain from the war.

“It’s so unreal to see the names etched in that wall,” McGuire said. “With any memorial, when you get to touch the names, it’s a good feeling. … It’s a healing factor.”

A Cullman woman has found healing in her association with the wall. Donna Thomas is the chairman of the Alabama Vietnam Moving Memorial. The wall has a special place in her heart because her brother’s name is on it.

Thomas’ brother, Pvt. 1st Class Jimmy Elrod of Oneonta was drafted in May 1967. He arrived in Vietnam on Oct. 15, 1967 and died on Dec. 7 of that year. Elrod was 20 years old. Thomas was 12.

“It was the most profound thing that ever happened to my family because of the circumstances it happened under,” Thomas said. “He was away from home and so young and innocent. We didn’t know how it happened, who was with him.”

However, Elrod’s lieutenant wrote the family a letter and let them know the details of Elrod’s death. Thomas said that same lieutenant called the family on the 20th anniversary of her brother’s death. Several years after that, Thomas’ mother received a phone call from the lieutenant.

“He had driven from Ohio to Birmingham and wanted to see Jimmy’s grave,” she said. “He had been to see every guy in his unit and visited the other soldiers’ graves.”

Thomas said the lieutenant suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome because of the lives lost in Vietnam. She said her mother, who also died after a battle with Alzheimers, agonized over the death of her son.

“That’s why I do this,” Thomas said of her commitment to the moving memorial. “I watched my mother grieve for 35 years over the loss of my brother.”

Thomas’ other brother, Andy Elrod, also served in Vietnam and died as a result of Agent Orange poisoning. “I really lost two brothers due to the Vietnam War,” she said.

Thomas said the men whose names are inscribed on the wall are really “the lucky ones.” She said she felt bad for the soldiers who lived and came home to the U.S., only to be mistreated. She’s thankful that soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are not being treated similarly.

“I hope and pray they never encounter what the Vietnam-era soldiers did and are still having to encounter,” she said. “If we tell these veterans, ‘thank you,’ they break down in tears. I’ve had grown men say ‘That’s the first time anybody has ever said thank you to me.’”

Thomas said the moving memorial works off donations, and buckets will be available this weekend for anyone who wants to give.

“There’s more we can do for the living than we can do for the dead,” she said. “We just want to tell these guys ‘thank you,’ and that there’s some of us out there who are sympathetic.”



Facts about the wall

• There are 1,209 names of Alabama men and women who died in southeast Asia on the wall. At least 58,183 U.S. soldiers were killed in the Vietnam War.

• The highest death toll year for Alabamians in Vietnam was 1968, with 339 killed.

• The names of five soldiers from north Jefferson County are etched in the wall. Those names are: Pfc. Bobby Waits Cameron of Hayden; CWO Ferman Bobby Hodges of Gardendale; Sgt. Julius C. Houlditch Jr. of Morris; Pfc. Larry Dean Kelley of Fultondale; and Cpl. Johnnie Robert Miller of Mt. Olive.