By RICK KRON
Leader staffwriter
The sun shone down and a solid breeze whipped flags to attention as marching units, local Scout groups, various veteran groups, motorcycles and military vehicles paraded down Jacksonville’s Main Street on Saturday afternoon honoring Vietnam veterans.
Hundreds lined the street, many sitting, smiling and pointing, some waving, and one, Roger Henderson, decked out in a black Vietnam veteran hat and a black leather jacket with three lines emblazoned on the back: “9th Infantry Division, Combat wounded, Old Reliable,” stood solemnly through the entire event.
Henderson, 64, was just 20 years old when he was sent to the swamps and rice paddies of the Mekong Delta in 1969. He was married a week before he shipped out.
“It was funny,” he said. “Here I was in the Army, going to Vietnam and I needed my mother’s signature to get married.”
His bride-to-be, at 18, didn’t need permission. “Good thing his mother liked me,” quipped Henderson’s wife, Penny.
That was the good, actually the great, before the bad.
Henderson shipped off to Vietnam as part of the Army’s 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong.
On his 21st birthday, about halfway through with his tour, Henderson was working point, out front, for his platoon when shots rang out. He caught two in the chest and one in the shoulder. The fire aimed at Henderson allowed the rest of the platoon to take cover and evasive action.
He was pulled to safety and then spent time in hospitals in Vietnam and Japan before being shipped to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, and given a medical discharge.
Henderson, who was raised around the Scott area and now lives in Cabot, said there were no parades or welcome homes when he and his fellow veterans returned.
“You wouldn’t wear a hat like I have on now or even wear your uniform. It wasn’t so bad in Arkansas, but in some states men were getting harassed just because they had short hair,” he recalled.
Almost 44 years later, the veteran still has physical pain from the injury and doesn’t like to talk about his time there. He received the Purple Heart and the bronze star for his service in Vietnam. Those medals, and pictures of him back then, are proudly displayed in the living room over the television.
“We see it everyday,” his wife said “And we are so proud of him.” That proud group includes a daughter, a son and four grandchildren. Henderson’s daughter, Tammy, married a military man who has already spent a year in Iraq.
Henderson, who missed last year’s inaugural parade, said he heard about this one at the Veterans of Foreign Wars post.
As a unit of Marines marched by, ending the parade, Henderson said it was good to see. His wife called it emotional, adding that a number of Vietnam reunions the couple have attended helped her understand better what her husband went through.
As solemn of an event as it was for Henderson, a Boy Scout troop from Little Rock Air Force Base passing out fans and small American flags, liked the parade for much different reasons than Henderson.
Gavyn Rudquist, Dominique Aricpe and Alex Dahn, all 11 years old, enjoyed the motorcycle calvacade with the veterans the best. Aricpe added it was great seeing all the military guys, especially the Marines.
When asked about the Vietnam War, long before their time, Rudquist, who is thinking of joining the military, said he knew many people came back in wheelchairs and crutches. Aricpe said he heard it was a bad war.
The parade, which lasted about 30 minutes, had about 20 groups in it, including the LRAFB Honor Guard, parade marshal John Mohler, who earned three Purple Hearts during multiple tours in Vietnam, the Rolling Thunder and Combat Veterans motorcycle club, the David D. Terry Jr. chapter of the Air Force Association, which sponsored a decorated truck, and then there was a truck and trailer by A Veteran’s Best Friend, a nonprofit dedicated to using service dogs to help Vietnam veterans lead normal lives.
Also in the parade were the 40-student Watson Chapel High School Junior ROTC marching group, a three-car convey of veterans sponsored by the Ira C. Eaker chapter of the Distinguished Flying Cross Society, dozens of members of Girl Scout Troops 6395, 6061, 6498, 6096 and 6255, an Army hummer from the Jacksonville Museum of Military History and a traveling wall with names of those from the area who died in Vietnam, sponsored by First Arkansas Bank and Trust.
Others in the parade included a decorated truck from VFW Post 4548 in Jacksonville, a truck sponsored by the local Daughters of the American Revolution and the Children of the American Revolution, a truck sponsored by Crain Ford driven by Vietnam veteran Glen Boyd, 50 marching airmen from the 19th Airlift Wing and 314th Airlift Wing at LRAFB, a 13-vehicle convey from the Arkansas Military Vehicle Preservation Association, three vehicles sponsored by American Legion, Post 74 and 20 marching Marines attending the Center for Naval Aviation Technical Training at LRAFB.
