Annual Ceremonies at the Carroll County Vietnam Memorial

Annual Ceremonies at the Carroll County Vietnam Memorial

May 27, 2019 – an updated excerpt from a longer article originally published May 25, 2008 by Kevin Dayhoff, USMCR 1971-1973

After the annual Memorial Day ceremonies at the Westminster Cemetery, a number of us gather at “The Carroll Co. Md. Vietnam Memorial Park”

After the annual Memorial Day parade along Westminster’s historic Main Street and the ceremonies at the Westminster Cemetery, a number of us have carried-on a tradition of gathering at “The Carroll County Maryland Vietnam Memorial Park” across the street from the historic 1837 Court House in Westminster. There, we pay homage to our loved ones from Carroll County who made the ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam.

This impromptu and solemn observance began when the memorial park was dedicated on May 28, 1990 – and carried-on by a small handful of us ever since. We have barely missed a single event. We owe it to our brothers who are on the black granite memorial.

Over 2.7 million Americans served in the Vietnam War. The average age was 19. Of that number, 300,000 were wounded in action, and 75,000 were disabled. It has been estimated that almost 5 million military personnel and civilians, from all sides, lost their life in the Vietnam War. Of the 58,200 names listed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, 1,046 are Marylanders who made the ultimate sacrifice in the Vietnam War.

Since the Revolutionary War, the beginning of our great country, fought to gain our freedom from England and our foothold on independence, to the present conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq over 42 million men and women have served in uniform to protect our way of life. In over 230 years, 657,267 men and women have given their lives for us on battlefields around the world. Over 19 million citizens are living war veterans.

When we gather at the Carroll County Vietnam Memorial we pay our respects to all the patriots that have gone before us, but we are particularly drawn together to share the memories of the eighteen names that are etched in the black granite memorial that is the centerpiece of the memorial park.

The Vietnam War ended over 30 years ago and yet for many of us the memories of lost friends and loved ones who served, is indelibly etched in our minds as if it were yesterday.

The names are not just references to intellectual history for those of us who gather for our informal ceremony. We gather together and pay tribute in a manner that is entirely a personal matter - in a way that perhaps only those of us who are children of the 1950s and 60s totally understand.

The faces of the nineteen names on the monument, 17 killed in action, one missing in action, and one prisoner of war, are frozen in time. Some we knew. Some we didn’t. But they were all someone’s son or father or brother or uncle – or a cherished childhood friend. Their faces have been silent for many years, but they all have a story to tell.

The first person listed on the Carroll County Vietnam memorial was Ronald Kenny, February 1966. The last was Herbert Mulkey, Jr., March 1971. The deadliest year for Carroll County – and the war – was 1968, when Carroll County lost seven men to the memorial.

In past columns, I have shared the stories of eight of the eighteen fallen heroes from the Vietnam War whose faces are etched in the black granite memorial in the Carroll County Vietnam Memorial Park on Willis Street.

The stories of Fred Magsamen, Christopher Jesse Miller, Jr., Stanley Groomes, Joseph Blickenstaff, Herbert Eugene Mulkey, Jr., James Norman Byers, Ronald Kenny, and Sherman E. Flanagan, Jr., have been re-told in hopes that they will not be forgotten.

In past Eagle columns we have commemorated the life and sacrifice of Freddy Magsamen; a 1966 Westminster High School graduate who on Friday, May 9, 1969, at 21 years of age, died after the lead helicopter in which he was riding crashed in Quang Nam Province. He survived the crash, but when he was being airlifted, the extraction line from the rescue helicopter snapped…

Freddy, number 11 on the Westminster High School football team, a great uncle, son, brother, and friend to many, who liked to work on cars and play bass guitar is listed on Panel 25W Line 032 of the Vietnam Memorial Wall.

On Nov. 11, 2007, a Sunday Carroll Eagle honored Lance Cpl. Stanley Groomes, from Hampstead. He was also twenty years old when he was killed by a claymore mine on November 2nd, 1968 in Quang Tri province, just below the Demilitarized Zone and the Ben Hai River.

Lance Cpl. Groomes was buried in the Arlington National Cemetery. He can be found today on panel 39W, line 008 of the Vietnam Memorial Wall.

On May 28, 2007, for Memorial Day, the Eagle paid homage to Specialist 5 Joseph William Blickenstaff, Jr; who was killed on a combat mission in the III Corps Tactical Zone on Saturday, December 19th, 1970. On his Dad’s birthday, his helicopter was hit by enemy gunfire just above the Mekong Delta and north of Phù Lôi, in Binh Duong Province, about 50 miles above Saigon.

SP5 Joseph W. Blickenstaff is on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. on Panel 6W, Row 131.

After Memorial Day we look forward to summer vacations, leisurely cookouts or fun at the beach. However it is only fitting that on this Memorial Day we pause to remember; as well as honor those who gave so much so that we can continue to live in a land which offers us the unalienable right to live free and cherish liberty in the pursuit of happiness.