Louisiana VIII

In what I believe was my very first post from Louisiana, I commented that the state seemed to have no official memorial but, that there were two in New Orleans.

That was June 11, 2012. Now, I just read that an official Louisiana State Memorial, honoring all 885 lost, was dedicated on Saturday March 29,2025: the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.

Congratulations Louisiana.

Until I can get back to Louisiana, I will continue to try to honor those lost or who served in any way that I can.

One of the very first pictures I ever took in the state was not far from the airport at Dignity Memorial Gardens and seems to honor a number of Air Force vets who were captured. (This is one of the times I hope to hear from someone more knowledgeable that I am as I cannot track down information on the site.)

These names are crops from the 35 names listed here. Some are so weathered that they hard to read.

 

 

These photos were taken from the Wall of Faces, part of VVMF's effort to gather a face for every name on The Wall. You can see the thousands more they have collected here.

Next time, on the 26th of April, we will venture, again, to  Maryland, so, join me, as always, at 9:00 am.

If you are following along at all, you will have seen that a number of you, like Joan from Wisconsin, Tony from Texas, Mike from Maryland, Ron from Florida, Tim from Virginia, Molly from Florida, Colleen from Pennsylvania, Elli from Maryland, and Peg and Ray from Florida, among others, have responded to my request to send me memorials you have seen in your area or where you may have traveled. I even got one from Ireland! These submissions help expand the knowledge of how we have remembered the men and women who served and/or were lost in 'Nam and you help to honor them. If you have any such photos, I would love to see them. Please send them along to the email at the left and I will gladly share them here.

I hope all those listed here will encourage you to send along photos.

Louisiana V

Between Armstrong International Airport and New Orleans sits the Dignity Memorial Gardens. I have visited a number sites in this chain of cemeteries and, so far, each has had some kind of Veteran's memorial on site.

The memorial here has a specific monument to Vietnam. This is not always the case so I was eager to see and photograph it. It is located right on Airline Drive so it is easy to find upon leaving the airport.

The area in which it is located has a large state shaped sign proclaiming Louisiana Remembers. There are several memorials here to different actions. What struck me about this one was that it only listed 35 names of lost Louisianans. I have attempted to find out why this is and how these particular names were chosen, but have not heard back from them at this point. As always, if I do hear from them I will post an update.

From here we will visit Houma in Terrebonne Parish on July 6th at 9:00 AM