Veterans’ agent needs help finding Vietnam Era vets

Tony Andreotti (left) is on a mission to honor Vietnam vets from Canton. (Blanka Stratford photo)

After holding moving recognition ceremonies for the surviving veterans of World War Two and the Korean War, Canton Veterans’ Agent Tony Andreotti is now planning a similar event on September 11 for the veterans of the Vietnam Era.

Scheduled for 3 p.m. at the high school football field, the ceremony will honor anyone from Canton who served at least one day during the war years (1964-1975) and at least 90 days total — including those who entered service from the town as well as those who have since moved here.

And with several hundred people meeting these criteria, Andreotti is expecting it to be the largest group of servicemen and women he’s ever assembled in one location.

There’s only one problem: He has to find them first.

While he never anticipated tracking down every last Vietnam veteran, Andreotti said he was genuinely “shocked” to learn that only about 60 of the 450 or so people who were drafted out of Canton during the entire war era still live in town.

“So we were confronted with trying to find addresses for some 400 people,” he said, “and when you really look at it, it made a lot of sense to me.”

“The majority of veterans had come home and either the jobs weren’t there or real estate prices were too high, or they met girls or boys, and moved into other towns,” he said.

Andreotti said it was different for those returning from World War II, when manufacturing jobs were still plentiful and the culture emphasized staying put.

“The attitude back then (after WWII) was that you stay around your parents, you join the organizations your parents were in, you visit your parents on the weekends,” he said. “That was their thought process; all the other towns around you were foreign towns, so to speak.”

Andreotti said things began to change with the Korean vets less than a decade later, as about half of them moved to other communities, and by the 1960s and 70s it was commonplace for soldiers to return home and then settle elsewhere.

Noting that the average age of a Vietnam veteran is around 65, Andreotti said many have also begun to relocate to warm weather states such as Florida and California.

So far, Andreotti and his committee of volunteers have been able to come up with addresses for a little over half of the out-of-town veterans obtained from the war records database.

For the remaining 160 names, Andreotti is turning to the residents of Canton in hopes that they might recognize a name or two and pass along whatever information they might have. The complete list can be found here. It also appears on page 2 in this week’s edition of the Citizen, along with a form to fill out for those who know the current address of a particular veteran. Andreotti has also requested that residents notify him of any deaths either by mail (address below) or email at tandreotti@town.canton.ma.us.

As for those who have since moved to Canton, Andreotti referred to the town census and sent letters to any veteran who possibly could have served during the Vietnam Era based on their birth year. He has now received over 200 responses and plans to invite each of them to the upcoming ceremony on September 11.

“Altogether, I’m anticipating sending out over 400 invitations, which would easily be our largest number ever sent,” he said.

And unlike WWII or Korea, the age gap between those who served in 1964 and those who served at the tail end of the war is so great that many of them never crossed paths — not until many years later, at events such as these.

“When they show up, they’re going to be shocked to realize who’s a Vietnam veteran,” Andreotti predicted.

“It happened when we had the [traveling memorial] wall in town,” he recalled. “At the closing ceremony, a couple of the guys asked me to have all of the Vietnam veterans meet at the middle of the wall. They stepped forward and those guys were looking at each other with their mouths open. They couldn’t believe it.”

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