When I was in the VVA, we placed flags on all veterans graves. I would often read the names and could feel the grief of the families.

Some things that might not be readily known...

Of the 2.5 Million Vietnam Vets, only 850,000 were alive as of 2014 with 390 dying each day. Average age of entry into the military was 19...in 1967, every male who turned 19yrs 3 mos in June/July/August were drafted and sent to South Vietnam or Southeast Asia...Estimates of the total number of American citizens who moved to Canada due to their opposition to the war range from 50,000 to 125,000...these were pardoned in 1977 with about 1/2 remaining in Canada...(CBC, 2004)... Canada had a number of excellent reasons for not entering the war and some hard criteria for getting into it...

Yes, Vietnam was a controversial war...but the men and women that served during that era were as dedicated to their service as in any other era of our military history. The Vietnam Veterans of America's founding slogan is "Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another"...

"Ancestry" sees it so beneficial and important to capture that era that they even prepared questionnaires for interviewers, families and friends of Veterans...this because there is not as much publicly available information about the Vietnam era as for other wars...go figure...

(some of the above obtained from Ancestry.com)

Don't just know a Vet...know the era they served in...it will help to understand them better without seeming to pry...