Naperville's Healing Field spotlights Vietnam vets
When Jim Oftedal left for Vietnam in the last days of spring 1968, he was a 21-year-old Army specialist and a husband with a child on the way.
When he returned home a year later, he counted himself blessed because he was not only now a father, but he was alive. By the end of the war in 1975, two high school pals and a college buddy were not. They were among 58,000 American troops who died in the war.
"When you're involved in the activity at the time, you don't think too much about it," the 68-year-old Naperville man said Saturday at the base of his hometown's Rotary Hill where a field of 2,015 American flags had been posted to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. "But as you get older you realize how lucky you were."
This is the third time Naperville has installed the Healing Field of Honor flags. The last time was in 2012.
Saturday the massive field of flags was accompanied by a replica of the Vietnam War Memorial as well. Like the original in Washington, D.C., the replica memorial is a wall inscribed with the names of those who died in service during the war.
Vietnam was not a popular war then and remains a controversial historical subject, but most veterans of that war agree they are treated better today than when they originally returned from that war.
The event's keynote speaker, Medal of Honor recipient Allen J. Lynch of Gurnee, said veterans who fought and served in Vietnam are a special and tougher breed because of what they went through.
"What we dealt with in Vietnam and coming home made us stronger and more resolute," Lynch said. "A lot of people say that we were mistreated, that we were abused, but you see that wall over there? Vietnam Veterans did that. We said we want a memorial, and we made it happen. We were vocal about problems at (the Department of Veterans Affairs), and we worked to fix them. A lot of what we dealt with in Vietnam and coming home made us strong and more resolute."
Plaques honoring the 11 servicemen from Naperville who died in the Vietnam War were also unveiled Saturday. Students from the city's high schools read the biographies of the fallen men before a bugle corps played echo taps.
Tom Begg, a former state police investigator who now lives in Indian Head Park, said he got a medical discharge during the war and went to work for the state instead.
"I failed the Army physical when I got drafted and I tried to join the Marines, but they found out about the Army physical," Begg said. "I felt I had an obligation to my country, and I saw a lot of my friends getting drafted or enlisting."
With a nephew serving in the Air Force, Begg said coming out to honor veterans Saturday at the event was something he needed to do.
"This field is unbelievable," he said standing among the flags. "It brings a tear to your eye."