Lynn salutes Vietnam vets

LYNN – Bruce Dobson and Walter Gutherie stood tall and said little Friday as Classical High School students filed by them in City Hall’s foyer, each one shaking the two Vietnam war veterans’ hands.Dobson, a Winthrop resident, and Gutherie, a local veterans post commander, were honored for their military service by the students, as well as fellow veterans and city officials, with Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy offering the pair and other Vietnam veterans “a long overdue thank you.”Francis Jensen was the same age as the Classical students who attended the ceremony when he spent 1970 and 1971 serving in the Army in Vietnam. The experience transformed him from a young soldier who thought the United States could make a difference in Southeast Asia to a veteran who wept aboard the flight that brought him home.””I thought we shouldn’t have been there. It seemed like we weren’t winning,” the Marblehead resident said.The keynote speaker at Friday’s ceremony addressed the circumstances 40 years ago that underscored Jensen’s misgivings. Warren Griffin said a conflict that escalated from Americans advising South Vietnamese troops to a full-scale war unfolded as “America began to question itself.””Because of restraints placed on our military leaders, the war dragged on and on. Wars are not for the faint-hearted: If you are going to commit to a war, you have to go all in,” said Griffin, past Marine Corps League, Department of Massachusetts, commandant.Griffin also spoke about the struggles Vietnam veterans faced to obtain benefits, including the “battle against corporate America” to recognize medical conditions caused by Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant.Jensen said he’s still fighting to obtain medical benefits and Army veteran and City Councilor Peter Capano recalled the local fight to keep the Boston Street veterans clinic open.”Vietnam veterans – you are not forgotten for the sacrifices you made,” Capano said.State Veterans Services Secretary Francisco Urena echoed Griffin’s words when he urged veterans ceremony attendees to honor Vietnam veterans. Gov. Charlie Baker picked Marine veteran Urena to lead state efforts to aid 385,000 Massachusetts veterans.”I know you did not receive the warm welcome we veterans did but it is by the works of great veterans service workers that we have accountability,” he said.