SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Veterans of the Vietnam War were honored aboard the USS Midway Wednesday morning, marking 50 years since the end of the conflict.
Some of the veterans ABC 10News spoke to at the ceremony said it meant a great deal to them to receive this recognition.
Hundreds of people filled the flight deck for the ceremony.
"I left Vietnam in 1968... It's as fresh in my mind as if it happened last week," said Robert Werner, who served as a Marine corpsman during the war.
Werner joined the U.S. Navy at just 17 years old, and he spent three years in Vietnam. During his six years of service, he was affectionately known as "Doc."
"I didn't know what a bed was for a very long time. I slept in the mud, grass, bamboo," he said.
Being aboard the USS Midway brought back a lot of memories for Werner.
"This is the same bird that we would use to evacuated, and the same bird we would use to deliver us to a landing zone," he said, referencing a helicopter. "This could do everything in Vietnam, and it did."
Doc said after the US signed the Paris Peace Accord to end the war in 1973, quite a bit went on for the next two years.
"In 1975, the north Vietnamese were marching south to occupy Saigon... The Midway played a large part in that. I believe there were a number of refugees that were on the Midway — something like 3,000," he said.
Fifty years later, Doc now works as a veteran volunteer aboard the ship.
"I love talking to people, especially on the Midway, in partying the knowledge of the ship and the ship's history and all of the aircraft that are on the ship," he said.
The USS Midway Museum held the special ceremony Wednesday to recognize the men and women whos erved in Vietnam. It included a guest speaker, a wreath laying and was capped off with a ceremonial flyover.
Doc shared what this moment meant for him.
"We were not greeted very well when we came back. I personally was spat on and was called some very nasty names when I landed after coming back from Vietnam. It's wonderful that finally, 50 years later, we're starting to recognize the sacrifices that we all made."
