Memorial mission continues for Vietnam vets

From his return to civilian life in 1968 until his death last May, William “Ginty” Wiederhold made the most of what he had and gave his all to his family and community — a stark contrast to the stereotypes often attached to Vietnam veterans.

William Wiederhold’s daughter Audrey and his grandson Kevin (Courtesy of Stockus Photography)

The same, it seems, could be said of his younger brother Paul, a former Army sergeant and Bronze Star recipient who served in Vietnam with the 173^rd Airborne.

Just two years apart, the two brothers would go on to lead parallel lives in their hometown of Canton. They both raised daughters and both were electricians — Ginty for IBEW Local 103 and Paul as the longtime owner of Canton Electric. Both joined the American Legion and both were proud of their service records and remained committed to their country. And both, sadly, died young — Paul of lung cancer at age 59 and Ginty of heart disease five years later at age 67.

Today, there is little dispute as to the cause of either brother’s death: a blend of tactical herbicides known to most Americans as “Agent Orange.” Used by the U.S. military throughout the Vietnam War to defoliate forested land and destroy enemy cover, Agent Orange is now known to have been contaminated with toxic dioxin compounds and has since been linked with a variety of human illnesses — including skin diseases and cancers of the lungs, larynx and prostate.

“There was a big battle in Washington over Agent Orange, long after even the [Vietnam Memorial] wall was put together,” recalled Canton Veterans Agent Tony Andreotti, who has emerged as a passionate advocate for Vietnam veterans since taking over the post in 1999. “Eventually they realized that we’re losing too many young people 25 and 30 years after the war, and all of them had stepped foot in Vietnam.”

A few years ago, Andreotti used proceeds from the Canton Veterans Fund to have a bench installed at Veterans Memorial Park to honor those residents who died prematurely after serving in Vietnam, and it did not take long for the bench to begin filling up with plaques. The 10th plaque — honoring Ginty Wiederhold — was added just last month.

“For a small town, that’s quite a number,” noted Andreotti, who knew most of the men personally and helped many of them and their spouses file for disability compensation.

Andreotti said he usually honors each new addition on Memorial Day, reading the name and presenting flowers to the surviving family members, but he chose to hold a small, separate ceremony for the Wiederhold family after they lost a second loved one in the span of five years.

“I thought, after putting the second brother on there, that it was a little unique and it deserved more attention,” he said.

Ginty’s daughter Becky said she spoke for the whole family in describing the ceremony as a “true honor.”

“All of these men gave so much of themselves,” said Becky, who described her dad as a “big teddy bear” and her uncle Paul as the “one to make everyone laugh.”

“During a time when war was frowned upon,” she said, “it’s nice to know that their actions for their country have not gone unnoticed.”

For Andreotti, adding a memorial bench alongside the existing war monuments felt like the least he could do for a group of men who have endured a unique set of challenges over the past three-plus decades.

He likened it to the national In Memory program, sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF), which recognizes all of those deaths that were service-connected yet do not fit the criteria for inclusion on the Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.

“The In Memory program,” according to the VVMF website, “began in an effort to acknowledge the hardships these veterans and their families went through and the strengths they possessed after the war ended. The In Memory program honors the sacrifices these veterans and their families made.”

A detail of the bench (Click to enlarge)

Andreotti said he had a similar thought after bringing the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall to Canton in the fall of 2005.

“As we were planning the wall visit with the Vietnam committee, they were saying to me that there are friends of ours from Canton who can’t go on the wall because they did not die from wounds,” he said. “Now with the In Memory program, any veteran who died from [service-connected] non-wounds, from post-traumatic stress disorder — there have been a lot of suicide deaths — and this string of cancers and other conditions can be formally recognized. And the bench was a way of handling that for the Canton community.”

Andreotti agreed that the wall should remain “clear-cut” and limit inclusion to those who died in service; however, he is pleased to have found a way to honor those who died prematurely — people like Bob Barrette, who struggled for years with diabetes and other complications before ultimately convincing the Veterans Administration to recognize his disabilities as service-connected.

Andreotti said Barrette had all but given up and was planning his own funeral when they decided to make yet another case for compensation — the bulk of which went to his wife and children after his death in 2006.

Others, like Kevin Kelly, were awarded full disability but died a short time later. Andreotti said Kelly, who worked for the DPW and served on the Funeral Honor Guard, got cancer at a young age and eventually became too sick to work.

“He was one of my very first [Vietnam claims cases],” said Andreotti. “He was single, he had met a girl and had just started a new life in Florida. He passed away a short time later. It was really sad.”

For the most part, Andreotti believes that the country has gotten over its bitterness toward Vietnam, and he has noticed a dramatic shift in the attitude toward veterans in the last 15 or so years.

“When they first got home from Vietnam, the soldiers were told to burn their uniforms and not to wear them on the street,” he said. “I saw it myself. I was a member of the [Canton] Town Club, and I could see they weren’t coming in there.”

Now, he said, many of the veterans’ agents themselves are from the Vietnam Era, and the VA has become more accepting of Agent Orange and other service-related illnesses over the past several years.

“I think the VA is trying to make up for the hard time they gave in the past,” Andreotti said. “My whole tenure I’ve had a sympathetic VA that has wanted to think positively on claims.”

And the biggest beneficiaries, according to Andreotti, are the present veterans — men and women in their early 20s who no longer wait to seek support from their communities.

“I wish the war in Iraq never started,” he said, “but there are some benefits to it because all of a sudden the word veteran has become something you should be recognized and respected for.

“And guess what, it’s the Vietnam guys who are now saying, ‘We’ve got to meet them when they come home. We can’t let what happened to us happen to them.”

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Posted by Jay Turner on Oct 10 2013. Filed under Features. Both comments and pings are currently closed.