By Mary Drier
Staff Writer
CARO — Vietnam War-era veterans will receive recognition for their service to their county this weekend during a special event at the Caro Roadhouse Museum.
A commemoration of the Vietnam era will be 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday at the museum on 235 E. Congress St., which is located at the intersection of East Congress and South Almer streets.
The display will include music, photographs and news clippings from that time period with a special focus on those from Tuscola County to who served and those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Caro Historical Commission member Gail Lesoski has spent countless hours going through old newspapers looking for names and information, talking to people about those who went off to war and collecting information on those who died. She compiled a special packet of information about each solider from the county that will be on display.
“When the Caro Historical Commission decided to honor the Vietnam-era veterans of the 60s for our Armed Forces Day tribute, I realized this was my opportunity to get to know more about the names on the Vietnam Wall Memorial,’’ Lesoski said. “I wanted to find out ‘who’ they were before war got in the way.
“I want these men remembered. Remembered as people who were loved who had family and friends.”
When the Vietnam Memorial Moving Wall Memorial came to Caro in 2004, Lesoski was one of the committee leaders and helped developed a program to train visitor guides to be available to answer questions for those who visited the wall.”
“I met so very many wonderful people through that experience and got a chance to talk with some of the families and friends of the names on the Wall,” Lesoski said.
As a widow of a Vietnam-era veteran who died from Agent Orange complications, Lesoski has a personal interest in making this memorial special.
“I take the issues of all veterans very seriously. There are 58,166 men and women listed on the Vietnam Traveling Memorial,” Lesoski said. “They are my generation listed on the Wall.”
More than 800,000 Vietnam veterans died by the year 2000, which would have made them approximately 50 years old.
“Their life expectancy should have been, at least, into the 70s. My husband was 42 when he died. My brother was 51. I take this very personally.”
Lesoski said collecting information for the memorial proved to be a difficult task physically and emotionally, but with determination and the help from staff at area schools and Facebook connections, she has been able to acquire a few pictures and memories.
“I made a folder for each of our Tuscola County gentlemen whose name is on the Wall, and I invite visitors to the Caro Roadhouse Museum who knew these young men to bring pictures, items and special memories to add to these folders,” she said. “I know that each of them must have had plans and goals and dreams for a future they never got to see.”
Tuscola County soldiers whose names are on The Vietnam Memorial Wall who are being honored at the Caro Roadhouse Museum memorial are: Christopher Lee Vollmar (Akron), Danny Ward Bowers, Dean Ellsworth Hall, Michael Gordon Hoff, and Robert Lee Thane (Caro), John Patrick Giddings and David Dell Graham (Cass City), Andrew Charles Conrad, Jr., Donald Allen Hall, Jr., Walter Martin Keene, and Richard James Wager (Millington), John Paul Francis and Ronald Richard Barcalow (Reese), Larry Neil Bakke (Sebewaing), Terry Wade Betts (Tuscola), John A. McGrath and Michael Frederick May, who remains not recovered (Vassar).
Also, there will be a display of Vietnam War collectibles on loan from the Frankenmuth Military and Space Museum.
The event isn’t just to honor the fallen and their families, but all Vietnam veterans as well as all who served. It is free of charge.
“It is an excellent educational opportunity for baby boomers to reconnect with events from their past, for others to gain insight into a time of chaotic change in the history of the United States as well as learn about other events that were going on in the world during those years the 1960s,” Lesoski said.
President Obama signed a proclamation authorizing a commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War beginning on Memorial Day, 2012, and lasting through November 11, 2025, to honor the men and women who gave of themselves during that long, chaotic period in our nation’s history.
For more information, or if you have things to add to the display, call 989-673-5389.