Vietnam veterans honored at pinning ceremony in Rapid City

John, Jim and Susan Fitzgerald have always been proud of their late brother Tom's military service.

The trio was among a crowd of about 80 people who came out to honor Vietnam veterans at the Post 22 American Legion Hall in Rapid City.

The pinning ceremony, hosted by U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-South Dakota, on Tuesday, recognized the service of about 45 veterans. Tom Fitzgerald was the only posthumous honoree of the day. He served in the U.S. Army from 1968 through 1970 during the Vietnam War. He died in December 2024.

John Fitzgerald said Tom talked about serving in the Mekong Delta, "a key battlefield area he patrolled boat. He had a 16-foot Boston Whaler (boat) with a 50 caliber swivel on it, and they took some gunfire on there."

After the event, Susan Fitzgerald said, "It was wonderful."

"Up in Spearfish we honored everybody that came back. We had a strong veterans club up in Spearfish," she said. "It's a close-knit area."

Johnson said the central message of the pinning ceremony — part of a national effort — is, "a grateful nation thanks and honors you for your service. One thing we know is that we did not give these men and women in uniform a very good welcome home back in the 1960s and 1970s. Today is about making amends for that misstep."

The effort is a joint partnership of the government and veteran-focused nonprofits. Johnson said he's doled out about 1,200 pins to Vietnam veterans. The work is part of his duties as a representative. Johnson is also a candidate in the Republican primary for governor.

At Tuesday's ceremony, Johnson called the veterans up in groups of four to five to receive their pins and say a few words about their service. 

Barbara Connett told the crowd she enlisted in the Air Force out of Mitchell in 1973, right after high school. She served at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

"One of my sad jobs was to pick up the messages and highlight the death notifications, which was really, really tough," she said.

She retired in 1997 after a long career with the military.

Army veteran Danny Lane Noss served from 1970 until 1993. He said he volunteered during Vietnam but was sent to Korea.

"So you go where you're told you do the job to the best of your ability, and that's that's your mission. So I'm a Vietnam era veteran. I'm very adamant about that. I will never say that I'm a Vietnam veteran, because I did not physically spend one day in country," he said, noting he was also stationed in Germany during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the early 1990s.

"I've got a pet peeve, and that's when I come up to somebody and talk to them, and they say, 'Well, you know, I didn't shoot at somebody, or I didn't have anybody shoot at me, so I don't feel like I did anything.' And that makes me so mad I could slap them," he said, noting six to 10 people support "every person that ever fires a gun."

"I never fired a gun in 22 years, three months, I never had one fired at me. But that doesn't make me feel like I was less of a soldier," Lane Noss said.

Other soldiers talked about operations in Vietnam. Clark Mull was part of the 17th Assault Helicopter Company. He deployed to Vietnam in 1967, ending up in an area called Plantation that was near Bien Hoa Air Base. Their travails also took them to Dong Tam, Can Tho and elsewhere in the country.

"We got the hell shot out of this down there," he said.

Army veteran Dean Bullock told the Journal he enjoyed hearing stories from the veterans. Bullock was crew chief on a Bell U-1 Iroquois helicopter (a Huey, to use the veteran's parlance). He was stationed in Bien Hoa.

"I flew many missions to Tây Ninh (City in Vietnam), many missions. Black Virgin Mountain, my chopper took a shotgun blast off at the side of that mountain," he said. "Peppered the door pretty good."

Johnson said events like Tuesday's mean a lot to the veterans, "but it means a lot to our team as well as we hear about these incredible years that these men and women donated to our country."

The pinning ceremony project started as a short-term program, with elected officials across the country getting out to honor Vietnam veterans. 

"We don't think our work is done. There are thousands of veterans still to be honored in this state, so we purchased a few extra commemorative lapel pins, and we're going to make sure that we're giving those out over the course of the next 18 months," Johnson said, noting his office has also asked for an extension of the program.