Two fighter jets zoomed dramatically across the blue sky Monday morning in Southwest Portland, leaving parallel trails of clouds in their wake, but Chuck Buckley didn’t look up.
Instead, the 74-year-old Vancouver veteran stared at a list of names engraved into polished gray stone at the Vietnam Veterans of Oregon Memorial, tears leaking from his eyes. The names engraved across six monuments at the memorial site represent the 805 Oregon residents who died or went missing while serving in the Vietnam War between 1959 and 1976, a conflict that took the lives of more than 58,000 Americans.
Buckley, who served in Vietnam between 1966 and 1968, said attending the annual Memorial Day event is “the least you can do.”
“I was there,” he said, as bagpipers behind him began to play. The word “Marines,” spelled in red on the back of his green jacket, shimmered in the sunlight. “War is a waste of young men and women.”
Buckley was among about 100 people gathered for the 36th annual Memorial Day Ceremony at the Garden of Solace in Washington Park.
Many people sat or stood along the American flag-lined spiral walkway, listening for 57 minutes as the names of those who had been killed or disappeared were read aloud. Many attendees wore their military uniforms or hats and jackets emblazoned with words like “Army” and “U.S. Marine Corps Veteran.”
People gathered at the Vietnam Veterans of Oregon Memorial in Southwest Portland’s Washington Park for Memorial Day on May 29, 2023.
Bouquets of multicolored flowers rested on the walkway and atop the monuments. A military helmet perched on top of a rifle planted in the grass, a pair of combat boots straddling the gun’s barrel.
Kenneth Dale, 79, wore his sharp white U.S. Air Force shirt and navy cap.
The West Linn resident said he has been coming to the annual Memorial Day event for the last 30 years to honor all of his “brothers and sisters” in the armed forces, but especially his childhood friend, Earl Fray.
Dale and Fray met in the first grade in Lake Oswego and hit it off.
“He was an athlete and very intelligent and he cared,” Dale said. “He took me under his wing. I was just this little squirt.”
Fray died in Vietnam at 24 years old, Dale said.
He paused for a moment to listen to the names. As Fray’s was read, Dale solemnly saluted.
Dale said he didn’t react when he first learned of his friend’s death. About three years later, however, he was washing the dishes when he suddenly broke down and wept for his friend.
“Emotions – they have their own schedule,” he said.
Returning to the memorial each year provides Dale with a sense of peace, but it also feels like something he needs to do.
“I feel that I’ve done the right thing,” Dale said. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Amalie Doke, 75, also drives up annually from Monmouth for the service.
Her husband was helping clean the memorial site four years ago when he noticed the name of Doke’s uncle, Leo K. Thornton, was not listed on any of the monuments. Thornton, who grew up in Sutherland, Oregon, served in Vietnam when he was in his early 30s, but never came home.
Doke said she spent the past few years finding a way to get her uncle’s name engraved at the memorial. When she arrived for this year’s service, she was relieved to find his name spelled in white on the polished gray stone.
Doke was in college when her uncle left for Vietnam, and she wrote him letters until he suddenly stopped writing her back. She was returning from a trip to the Oregon coast when her mother said her uncle had died overseas.
Thornton’s death left Doke with unanswered questions. She knew her uncle grew up in Sutherland and was a great athlete who boxed and would run 16 miles home from school every day. But there are details she’ll never learn because his life was cut short.
“There’s a lot of things you don’t know,” she said. “All I know is that he didn’t get to come home.”
Leigh Maynard, 71, of Portland said he felt an obligation to teach his 11-year-old granddaughter and 7-year-old grandson about the Vietnam War, including by visiting the memorial on Monday.
Maynard said he was among the last to receive his draft number in 1970, but was not called because he was a conscientious objector.
“At that time I felt I could not participate,” he said. “If people followed problem resolution ideas that were taught in the bible, then there’s other ways to solve problems. That’s what I thought at the time.”
Maynard said parents and grandparents have a duty to tell their children the stories of what came before, including teaching them about war.
“This is an important time and an important place,” he said. “And I wanted to make sure that these kids were aware of it and of these Oregon boys who served faithfully and honorably.”
His granddaughter, Georgia, said she was grateful to be learning about the Vietnam War.
“It’s really sad that so many lives had to be taken,” she said. “It’s important.”
— Catalina Gaitán, cgaitan@oregonian.com, @catalingaitan_
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