Ceremony Marks 50th Year Since Vietnam War Exit, Honors Veterans

By TERESA WINCHESTER
GILBERTSVILLE

The American Legion Auxiliary Unit 1339 invites the general public to its annual Veterans Day ceremony, to be held at 2 p.m. on Sunday, November 10 at the Butternut Valley Grange Hall, 7 Bloom Street, Gilbertsville. The event, taking place one day before the official Veterans Day, will be in remembrance of the 50th anniversary of the departure of the United States from the undeclared war in Vietnam and will honor its 16 members of American Legion Post 1339 who are Vietnam veterans. Members of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Tianderah Chapter, will present special pins, and Girl Scouts have made cards with positive messages to present to this group of veterans. All deceased veterans will be remembered by a moment of silence.

Keynote speaker will be Unadilla Valley native Peter Lennon, retired U.S. Army Major General. As a leader in supply-chain operations, some of Lennon’s key assignments included theater-level transportation planner for the treaty implementation force in Bosnia-Herzegovina; director of strategic-level military transportation operations throughout the 23 middle-eastern countries of the United States’ Central Command; and commander of the 37,000-soldier 377th Theater Sustainment Command with forces throughout the eastern United States.

In late 2003, Paul Bremer, then-ambassador to Iraq, selected Lennon to establish and lead a multi-national team in the transition of the United Nations’ “Oil for Food Programme” in Iraq, providing food and essential goods to nearly half the civilian population. In 2008, Lennon designed and helped negotiate a network of re-supply routes into Afghanistan through the Central Asian States of the former Soviet Union. Lennon culminated his military career as Deputy Commander for Training and Support of the U.S. Army Reserve Command’s 200,000 soldiers.

Lennon now lives in New Berlin, with his wife Elaine, where he has served as mayor since 2021. In 2022, he was sponsored by state Senator Peter Oberacker for induction in the New York State Veterans Hall of Fame.

In an e-mail communique sent by Major Gen. Lennon, he indicated that he intends to “highlight the present-day lack of connection between the military and the American public, postulating that “this lack of connection goes far beyond a simple decrease in appreciation for our veterans’ honorable service; it lulls us into a false sense of security.”

Lennon believes that we still live in a ”volatile, uncertain, complex, and inter-dependent world” and that “we must strive to become better educated on our history and draw inspiration from the example set by our veterans to effectively defend “the interests and the very essence of America both today and tomorrow.”

Also at the ceremony, the auxiliary will announce the continuation of Hometown Heroes, an initiative led largely by Auxiliary President Anne Sebeck, to hang banners with photos of veterans both living and deceased from light poles in Gilbertsville. With assistance from Tom Pasternak, owner of Tree Pro Services, and in cooperation with New York State Electric and Gas, 60 banners were hung both for residents of the Village of Gilbertsville and the Town of Butternuts. Participating in the same effort, the hamlet of Mount Upton hung 10 banners and the hamlet of Guilford hung 20. Applications for new banners will be available at the ceremony.

One of the Vietnam veterans present will be Dean Veenhof, whose banner hangs near the intersection of State Route 51 and County Highway 8. After leaving what was then known as Augustana College in Sioux City, South Dakota (now Augustana University), Veenhof was drafted by the U.S. Army in August 1965.  He served in the 25th Infantry Division, known as “Tropic Lightning.”

About entering the Army, Veenhof said, “I was scared, but you did what you had to do. I never considered going to Canada.”

As twists of fate will have it, Veenhof’s personnel captain recognized his name because he had been on a basketball team from Edgerton, Minnesota, a town which in 1960 claimed approximately 1,000 residents. Despite the town’s small size and the fact that there were then no divisions based on school size—big schools and small schools competed indiscriminately—Veenhof’s team won the 1960 state championship, going undefeated in its 27 games.

“The captain asked me if I would like to ‘get off this line unit.’ I said ‘yes,’ and was made clerk typist for the Chief of Staff. I did not see active duty, but I heard and saw things,” Veenhof said.

As clerk typist, Veenhof was charged with typing letters to next of kin informing them of the injury or death of family members.

“I typed on an IBM Selectric. There could not be one mistake. I used a lot of stationery,” Veenhof said.

Also as part of his duties, Veenhof, given security clearance, destroyed classified documents.

Veenhof spent 21 months in the Army, returning by plane with 300 fellow GIs to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

“That first week, I drove to New York and proposed,” Veenhof said.

Then, something unusual happened.

“From the middle of July through September, I dropped out of society. I guess I was processing things,” Veenhof said.

During that time, he loaded Coca Cola trucks in Minnesota, ate meals at a soup kitchen, and had no contact with anyone. Neither his immediate family nor his fiancée knew where he was. Almost as suddenly as he had dropped out, Veenhof returned to New York to finalize wedding plans. As a compromise between the New York City area and South Dakota, Veenhof and his wife, Judy, settled in Otsego County. Both are retired school teachers, Dean having taught physical education and driver’s education in area schools for almost 30 years, retiring from Gilbertsville-Mount Upton Central School.

Of the Vietnam War, Veenhof said, “58,000 wasted deaths. Vietnam was a waste of our lives.”

He is pleased that the auxiliary is planning a program to honor Vietnam War veterans.

“It’s needed. It’s great,” he said, adding that he had recently read “The Women,” a New York Times best-seller by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin’s Press, 2024) dealing with the nurses who served in Vietnam. Veenhof believes the nurses “have been overlooked for so long.” He also said reading the book brought back memories: “dirt, dust, noise, shelling.”

When Veenhof was searching for a picture to use for his Hometown Heroes banner, he came across some undeveloped film from his Vietnam days—the negatives were “almost brittle,” he said. He took the film to Walgreens, which in turn sent it out to be developed at a cost of approximately $100.00 for 40 pictures.

Most of the pictures are of the rather barren landscapes around Cu Chi, where Veenhof was stationed. In one photo, a darkened hill looms in the background.

“We called that Black Widow Mountain. It was no place to go,” he said.

Veenhof says he does not remember the names of the few fellow GIs appearing in the photos.

Nonetheless, he has visited the Vietnam War Memorial—inscribed with the names of the dead and missing—many times. Driving a motor coach for Oneonta Bus Lines and Eastern Travel allowed him multiple visits, he said.