The Vietnam War mural that has joined three other murals saluting veterans from World War II, the Korean War, and the Global War on Terror on the side of the Manteca Bedquarters building is not just a mural in the eyes of Ron Cruz.
“My hope is this mural will serve as a healing place,” Cruz told a gathering of more than 500 on hand Saturday to help dedicate the 30th downtown mural by the Manteca Mural Society.
Cruz related how after being seriously wounded in Vietnam and going through numerous surgeries, he was sent stateside to Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco for rehabilitation. It was there doctors told him he needed to go outside and work on his efforts to learn to walk again.
Outside the hospital he was confronted by aggressive protestors yelling at him as they called him a “baby killer” and “murderer” while the spit at him and threw objects.
“I refused to go outside again,” Cruz related of his stay at Letterman Hospital.
It was a far different crowd on Saturday that turned out to honor those who served in Vietnam including 17 who did not return including 18-year-old Marine Brock Elliott who was the first Manteca man to fall 50 years ago on May 26.
Muralist Linda Shrader — who along with her daughter Echo Westover — was commissioned to create the mural.
“It is because of you,” Shrader told the veterans in the crowd, “that all of us are able to have the lifestyles and the freedoms of expression and speech that we have.”
Her daughter echoed her sentiment, noting she had three sons.
Westover said she had two big fears for her sons. One that they may one day have to go to war. The other is if they do answer the call to defend their country and “survive the horrors of war” that they would return home to an ungrateful country as Vietnam veterans did.
Retired Army Major General Eldon Regua garnered the most robust reaction from Vietnam veterans in the crowd when he bluntly shared his views of the war.
“The war was not lost in the field, it was lost in Washington, D.C.,” Regua said.
Regua said of President Lyndon Johnson and his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara who came from running an automobile manufacturing company and not the military that “their failings were many.”
He pointed out their war of attrition strategy led to the deaths of 58,220 American soldiers and 153,303 wounded. Requa called Johnson and McNamara “arrogant” and liars for misleading Congress and the American people adding their wounds “were self-inflicted.”
“We are free today because of veterans that paid the price,” noted Bon Elliott, a retired Army officer now representing Manteca south of Yosemite Avenue as well as Tracy and Mountain House as San Joaquin County District 5 supervisor.
Manteca Mural Society President Charleen Carroll recognized Dorothy Gore whose son David was killed in action as a 19-year-old Marine 49 years ago today. He was the fifth Manteca man to fall. Carroll’s brother was Brock Elliott, who was the first of the 17 from Manteca, Lathrop and French Camp to die in the war,
Carroll noted there are only two Gold Star mothers left from the Vietnam era.
The mural’s elements were gleaned from a list of more than 50 that Vietnam veterans attending a mural workshop 16 months ago came up with. The mural’s foreground was designed to reflect the Vietnam Wall and lists the names of the 17 fallen from Manteca.
Veterans volunteering with the mural society will pass the helmet at the corner of Yosemite Avenue and Main Street this Saturday to raise funds for the fifth and final mural honoring World War I veterans.
The society plans to dedicate the mural May 28, 2018 on the 100th anniversary of the vote to incorporate the City of Manteca.
It will complete the series of five planned murals that — when finished — will reflect a $125,000 investment in public art on the east facing wall of the Manteca Bedquarters.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
