Ray Wilburn spent 41 years of his life in the U.S. Army. In 2012, Pres. Barack Obama signed the 50th Anniversary proclamation, which will continue until 2025, to ensure future generations come to understand the sacrifice made by Vietnam veterans \u2014 both on the battlefield, and once they came back to the United States.<\/p>\n
Wilburn served overseas three times during his military career, the first being during the Vietnam War in 1967 and 1968. He served in Bosnia in 2001-2002 and then in Iraq in 2005-2006.<\/p>\n
Wilburn joined about 30 other Vietnam War era veterans, members of Daughters of the American Revolution and local officials inside St. Andrew\u2019s United Methodist Church\u2019s Fellowship Hall recently where they were treated to lunch as part of the Vietnam War 50th anniversary commemoration.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made a commitment to celebrate our Vietnam Veterans sometime within a five-year period,\u201d said Sally Malone, regent of local DAR chapter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish more Vietnam vets would have come,\u201d he said looking out around crowd. \u201cBut this is really nice.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Oxford High School Marine JROTC presented the colors and Brady Bramlett performed a musical tribute titled, \u201cFor the Fallen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrew Wiest, professor of History at the University of Southern Mississippi and author of \u201cThe Boys of \u201867,\u201d was the guest speaker. He read from interviews he did with the veterans featured in his book.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best way to learn about the war is through their words,\u201d Wiest said. \u201cA lot has been written about the Vietnam War, most of it argumentative about whether it was a good or bad idea, but what\u2019s missing is the regular soldier. He\u2019s been lost in the shadows. So I wanted to tell the stories of the young men and women we sent there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oxford Alderman Rick Addy was given a Certificate of Appreciation for donating one month\u2019s salary to the DAR to host the luncheon. Addy donates his alderman salary each month to different local charities.<\/p>\n
Malone closed the event thanking the veterans in attendance for their service and sacrifices.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want you to know we send all of you our love and sincere thanks for what you did,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ray Wilburn spent 41 years of his life in the U.S. Army. In 2012, Pres. Barack Obama signed the 50th Anniversary proclamation, which will continue until 2025, to ensure future generations come to understand the sacrifice made by Vietnam veterans \u2014 both on the battlefield, and once they came back to the United States. Wilburn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,122,124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-veterans","category-veterans-stories","category-war-era-veterans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanveteransaid.com\/newblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanveteransaid.com\/newblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanveteransaid.com\/newblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanveteransaid.com\/newblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanveteransaid.com\/newblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/americanveteransaid.com\/newblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1163,"href":"https:\/\/americanveteransaid.com\/newblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions\/1163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanveteransaid.com\/newblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanveteransaid.com\/newblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanveteransaid.com\/newblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanveteransaid.com\/newblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}