“I guess when I got back, I didn’t expect to be spit on.” Area Vietnam vets get special recognition at Fort McCoy

Armed Forces Day was observed around the U.S. on Saturday, thanking current service members and veterans for representing their country.

Fort McCoy used the occasion to hold a special ceremony honoring Vietnam veterans, who have said they did not receive thanks from the public until recently.

Roland Larson of Eau Claire is a Marine veteran, who attended the ceremony and appreciated being recognized after all these years.

“I guess when I got back, I didn’t expect to be spit on and called ‘baby killer’ and things like that,” Larson said, recalling treatment which other veterans of the war have also described. “I think that’s changing now or at least it has changed in the last few years.”

Larson served with the Marines in Vietnam in 1967 and ’68.

Saturday, he and other Vietnam vets sat in the front row, as fort commander Stephen Messenger presented them with special pins marking their service in the war.

Messenger said he experienced some of the public gratitude the night before the official event, while visiting La Crosse.

“We were walking around in our uniforms for an event, and I was thanked on the streets by at least 12 different groups of people,” Messenger said. “And the Vietnam veterans we have, they just never experienced that, most of them haven’t, and they’ve never been thanked for their service on the street, as they’re walking around in uniform.”

Messenger argues that in the long run, America did win the Vietnam war, because that war helped lead to the fall of Communism.