With the names of the dead etched in stone behind him, President Barack Obama on
Monday marked the 50th anniversary of the start of the Vietnam War by
calling the treatment of the conflict’s veterans a “national shame, a
disgrace” and pledging that future soldiers will return home to better
treatment.
The war was “one of the most painful chapters or our history,” Obama said in a speech delivered to a crowd of vets and military families in front of the Vietnam War Memorial’s “Wall of Names” on the National Mall.
”You were often blamed for a war you didn’t start, when you should
have been commended for serving your country with valor. You were
sometimes blamed for misdeeds of a few, when the honorable service of
the many should have been praised. You came home and sometimes were
denigrated, when you should have been celebrated,” Obama said. “It was a
national shame, a disgrace that should have never happened. And that’s
why here today we resolve that it will not happen again. And so a
central part of this 50th anniversary will be to tell your story as it
should have been told all along.”
