Vietnam vets mark end of war with service in Lynn

LYNN – Tom Mailloux vividly recalls the day he got word that his teenage brother, John, had been killed in Vietnam.”A priest and a police officer went to the West Lynn GE and told my mother. When they called you up to the front office in those days, you knew what it was about,” he said Friday during a wreath-laying ceremony at City Hall to honor local residents who served during the Vietnam War.It was Nov. 24, 1968.”Kind of messed up Thanksgiving,” said Mailloux, who attended the ceremony with his sister, Maureen Mailloux Hudson. “Over the years, my family never forgot because of us. They won’t forget my brother and all the others who sacrificed.”Hudson said emotional closure was difficult, but eventually achieved. “For me, it’s 100 percent,” she said. “We lost my mother, Alice, last April. She was buried with John, which was her wish. Now it’s done.”U.S. Marine PFC John J. Mailloux’s name appears on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., as does that of U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Kevin Cahill, another young man from Lynn who died on the battlefield from machine gun and grenade wounds in 1967.”He was 19, a member of Company C, First Battalion, First Regiment, First Marine Division,” said the dead soldier’s brother, Thomas, who along with his wife, Jane, joined those at the ceremony in marking the anniversary of the end of hostilities in Vietnam. Their son, Kevin, was named after his late uncle and is currently a major in the U.S. Army.Cahill’s heroism during Operation Medina in the jungles of Vietnam is portrayed in a book entitled “Lions of Medina” by historian Doyle Glass.Just before the start of Friday’s program, a wreath was laid at Lynn’s Vietnam War monument in City Hall Square by veterans Arthur Salkins, Martin Robichaud and others. Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy read a proclamation that designates Monday, March 29 as Vietnam War Veterans Day in the city, mirroring similar recognition afforded by the state.Richard Perry of Lynn, a Korean War veteran, played taps on the trumpet, the notes echoing off the high ceiling of the City Hall lobby.The event was sponsored by the Lynn Veterans’ Council and highlighted by the English High School Junior ROTC color guard, under the command of U.S. Marine Sgt. Major Kenneth Oswald. It brought out dozens of those who served and their families. “There are thousands of Vietnam War veterans in Lynn,” said Michael Sweeney, the city’s veterans agent. “The youngest are in their late 50s and more are into their 70s,” he said. “With the World War II veterans all but gone and the Korean War veterans getting up in age, it’s hard to keep these kinds of events going. But the Veterans’ Council did a great job making it happen.”Nineteen young men from Lynn died in service to their country between 1964 and 1970.”I’m very proud and glad to be here today to celebrate and to remember all my fellow Vietnam veterans,” said Thomas Miller, 67, of Lynn, a disabled U.S. Marine who served two tours of duty during the Vietnam War, starting in the early 1960s, and spent 22 years in the Marine Corps.