California’s Vietnam Vets: Monument to Honor Them

SACRAMENTO — This is not a capital of towering monuments or inspirational memorials.

Inside the Capitol building is an incongruous marble carving of Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella with an inscription declaring her ready to pawn her jewels to finance his exploration. Outside are a statue of Father Junipero Serra, a Spanish-American war plaque, a replica of the Liberty Bell and a trout pond. Not far away are the Pat and Richard Nixon camellia bushes.

“But wait until you see this one!” enthused Sacramento man-about-town B. T. Collins over a planned $2-million monument and plaza to honor the Californians who fought and died in Vietnam.

A generation since the first Californians went to war in Vietnam and 10 years since the U.S. withdrawal, the state has fallen in line with the times and approved a belated tribute to 5,420 of its own who were killed and tens of thousands of others who served.

Built With Contributions

The hitch is that although the government is donating the space on the east side of the Capitol and has specified in law some of the requirements of the memorial, it will be the citizens and businesses of the state who must pay for its construction.

Collins, a Green Beret officer who lost an arm and a leg to a grenade in Vietnam and went on to a job as chief of staff to former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. and as director of the California Conservation Corps, among other posts, is a member of a seven-veteran commission that selected a design from 121 contest entries and will oversee the project.

The winner is a busy, plaza-style monument with a map of the combat zone and tableaux of battle scenes, in bas-relief bronze, taken from notable war photographs. The centerpieces are to be a flag and a life-size bronze soldier sitting on a helmet reading a letter from home. The names of the war dead are to be chiseled into granite, as they are at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Ringing the perimeter are to be planters of white roses, surrounded by cherry trees.

“The intent was not to abstract the war. The intent was to put as much literalism in it as we could,” said San Francisco designer Michael L. Larson, a former Marine who served in Vietnam. Larson, along with partner Thomas L. Chytrowski, submitted the winning entry.

The design offers no recognition of the political turmoil and anti-war protest that flourished in California in the war era of the 1960s and ‘70s.

Some entries in the design contest attempted to thread together the warriors and protesters, but Commission Chairwoman Linda McClenahan, a former Army communications sergeant who served in Long Binh, Vietnam, said none found favor with the judges.

“We decided not to include the controversy,” she said. “We wanted to give an idea what it was like being over there, something for those who come 100 years from now.”

McClenahan was one of few women who served in Vietnam, less than 1% of the total U.S. forces, she said. She was named to the commission by Gov. George Deukmejian after she applied, saying she does not want the role of women in Vietnam to be forgotten.

“I told him women have been going to war in support of their men as long as men have been having wars,” she recalled.

Thanks to McClenahan, the memorial will feature a nurse on one of the tableaux. The tableaux will show the different branches of the service in all kinds of combat, from the detached aerial bombing of B-52s to the horrible emptiness of POW life. Also depicted will be combat patrols and, of course, “men at rest.”

The names of the dead and missing will be listed by city of enlistment and then alphabetically. Under the rules, only veterans who enlisted in California will be named.

Californians Already Pitching In

The commission said it probably will hire a professional fund-raising company to take charge of financing the memorial, although some Californians already are pitching in. Deukmejian gave $200; a woman in Northern California promised to raffle off her hand-made quilts for the cause. The Adolph Coors Co. said it will put coupons in six-packs of beer this summer, giving drinkers a choice of receiving 50-cent refunds or making 50-cent contributions to the memorial.

Commission officials said it could take two years to raise the money and complete construction.

It is about time, said Collins, now a bond broker and popular political toastmaster who encouraged veterans to feel proud long before it was fashionable. “Nobody had more people killed (than California). Nobody had more people wounded. Nobody had more people serve. And nobody had more Medals of Honor, 28,” he said.

“This was an honorable thing those kids did.”