PapillionBusinesses.com Interviews Tom Brown (President) and Ron Elwell (Executive Director) of the Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Memorial Foundation.

The interview continues with Tom Brown.

Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Memorial with small triangle shaped garden in foreground with obelisks, flags and helicopter

There are so many different parts of the Memorial. Can you go through them?

We’ve got 11 obelisks, one for each year of the war. On one side of the obelisk, if you look at that, you have 1965 there. [Points to obelisk]

One side has what was going on in Vietnam at that time. The other side has what was going on in the United States at the same period of time.

I came back home in ’68, July of ’68, and the issue was you were to take off your uniform because there was so much protesting going on. I didn’t do that, but I am originally from New York. When I went back to JFK Airport in New York, you know, there is all the protesters there and everything else. It was not a very hospitable welcome.

I stayed home for about 30 days. I got stationed here in Omaha, and it was a whole different attitude here. The support here for the veterans was really positive which was nice to see.

Where did you serve?

I served basically from Da Nang, which is the upper [part of] what they call I Corps area, up to the DMZ and the DMZ, demilitarized zone. That’s the divider between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. And I was up there my last three or four months before coming home.

Did you get to come home before the war ended?

Oh yeah, I came home in the middle of the war. I arrived in Vietnam in May of 1966, and came home in July of 1968.

In the Marine Corps you do a 13-month tour. As I was doing that, I felt very strongly on a positive side about the war, so I did a six-month extension. Went home. Stayed there for 30 days, came back. And then I did another six-month extension after that.

Wow.

But the second extension I couldn’t complete. I only did about half of that because my dad had a heart attack, and I got medevac’d back to the United States.

Then I got stationed back here in Omaha and with the Marine Corps on 30th and Laurel Street, way up there in North Omaha and I did Toys for Tots. You know, going to all the McDonald’s and Western Electric back in those days. People would donate toys, and then we would work with the different agencies in delivering the toys. But the Reserves in Omaha, what they did is clean the toys and fix them so they were usable, like bicycles and stuff like that.

When I was there, I’m active duty for the last 10 [months, from] September of ‘68 and got discharged in August of ‘69.

So, this has been your home for a long time.

I lived in Nebraska. I got married to a Nebraska gal back in 1970. We are still married and that’s 54 years ago.

That’s beautiful.

It’s 53, to be 54 this November, but so that was good. And that worked out.

Were you originally from Nebraska born and raised?

No. Born Bronx. Oh, and I grew up basically in Queens and then the family moved out to Long Island. I was in an orphanage in the Bronx. And then I got adopted out when I was about 4, and then they moved out to Long Island. And I lived there until I was about [my] mid-20s.

And then I went to the Marine Corps in Times Square is where I joined the Marine Corps. Well, from Long Island, that’s about a half hour train ride. Times Square is the center there of the theatrical district and all the shows and Broadway shows and stuff like that and then you got the other four boroughs, Brooklyn and Queens and, stuff like that.

So, it was the Marine Corps that brought you to Omaha.

Yeah.

It’s the Navy that brought us to Omaha too. It’s kind of funny because there’s not much water here.

I got here and they really didn’t know what to do with me. And so, they said, “Well, we’ve got a big program coming up and [it’s] called Toys for Tots.” And they needed somebody to actively be involved in it. And I said, “Yeah, glad to do it.” It was a fun thing. You know, you went to a lot of different meetings and you received toys that different organizations and groups donated and then go back to the thing and we would have barrels, just cardboard barrel type things, out at all the McDonald’s and people would just donate toys to them. And then we drive around to the different McDonald’s in Omaha, Lincoln, Fremont and all that and just pick up the joys take them back to the Reserve Center, and then rebuild them, paint them, fix them, correct them or whatever. That was kind of the way I spent my winter.

What else can I tell you?

Generally, I have so many questions, but I just floored how beautiful this is and how overdue something like this is that I’m kind of speechless right now.

Ron:  Yeah.

Tom: Yeah.

Tom: Well, we have five service flags. The Marine Corps and the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Coast Guard. And in the middle here, we have where the American flag is going this way.

This is the American flag. And it is 6o ft in the air. You have on the far side and over here are the dates, all of the dates 1959 to 1975. Then over here, this far one says,  “Some gave all.”

At night this is all lit up.

Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Memorial at dusk

Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Memorial at night

(To be continued)

Come and see the Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Memorial for yourself at the ceremony on 6 June!

Get tickets and learn more here:
https://nvvmf.org/

Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Memorial
11691 South 108th Street
Papillion NE, 68046

PapillionBusinesses.com is here at the Nebraska Vietnam Veteran Memorial, a state memorial, with Tom Brown (President) and Ron Elwell (Executive Director) of the Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Memorial Foundation.

Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Memorial sign view from street with blue sky with clouds in background and green grass in foreground flanked by two obelisks

Please tell me about the project and anything you’d like to add. I’ll have some questions in between, but I find it’s usually better if you just go for it because you’ve got the heart to tell it.

(Part One is with Tom Brown)

This project started back in October of 2017.

A group of Vietnam veterans got together and wanted to do some sort of remembrance for the Vietnam veteran and there are other memorials in the state, but they are from multiple conflicts, where this one is just dedicated to the Vietnam War, to the Vietnam veterans.

We started in 2018 to get information on fundraising and things like that. We met with the architect, who is Don Prochaska and Associates, and they came up with the original drawings and the thought process for the whole memorial. Then they made a presentation to the Vietnam veterans, and everybody thought that was great and approved of it at that time.

And then in 2018 we actually formed a nonprofit corporation of 501 (c) (3), and that was approved in the summer 2019. And then we started raising funds for the memorial. And then in 2020, we came up with the pandemic and that pretty well put a stop to all fundraising, unfortunately, because you aren’t allowed to have meetings and were not having any veteran meetings. Most of the companies that you’re soliciting funds from are holding their money for their employees because they’ve got to figure out what they’re going to do and who they’re paying, [who] is not working, but they want to keep them, so you know, things like, yeah . . .

It was a very uncertain time for everything . . .

For everything. And so, we still solicited funds and stuff like that, but 2021 is when that overall scare got over with. Fundraising started to pick up. We, at that time, had hired a professional fundraiser. He gave us some guidance on raising money and all the intricacies of raising money.

It’s a lot different than just going out and asking somebody for some money at a cake sale or something where you’re asking people for $50,000 or $100,000 or $150,000. We incorporated some help from different people.

One of the groups that we worked with was Bellevue University. Lisa Jorgensen joined the group with us. We had a tremendous amount of support from Bellevue University and we needed to get a web page worked with us, taking care of us with project professionals who do web pages. That was tremendous support.

Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall

For help locating this site was the Mayor David Black, the mayor of Papillion. He was very, very helpful and instrumental in giving us a choice of different locations. And we had numerous meetings with him at his office and he offered to us if you have an engineering problem, talk to my engineers or go to my PR people. Just a lot of good support from him and from [the] University. Without those two, I’m not really sure how well we would have done. You know, you need that type of support.

Fundraising really got going in 2022. Very fortunate. At that time, we had set up an honorary committee,

Thank you.

And it was not so much getting funds from them, it was more the people that they knew and had contacts with. We had people like Chuck Hagel, the former Secretary [of Defense], Bob Kerry, Congressional Medal [of Honor] recipient, Hal Daub, former mayor, things like that. We had, I think, 14 or 15 members. Get the list.

That really helped to get fundraising going. We made all kinds of personal appearances to Rotaries, to other veteran organizations.

There was some like the American Legion did a challenge and they challenged all the other American Legions in the state of Nebraska to donate money. That was very, very successful. And the VFW did the same thing. So, it got to be one of these things that everybody kind of started to hear about what was going on.

How much did it cost?

Approximately, seven and a half million dollars. Originally, its budget was three point six. And then after the pandemic, everything went up in cost and it went to a little bit over 5 million and by the time it was all said and done at the end of seven years, it was about seven and a half million.

How did you end up? You talked a little bit about it.

One on one. Meeting the people. We had all kinds of meetings and groups that we had some of our members were doing presentations to different groups. Other VFWs, other Vietnam veteran groups, all kinds.

We went down to Lincoln [and] did a presentation to the Lincoln Rotary. And we went to the Rotary in Bellevue.

It’s a lot of presentations, one on one. A lot of calling on people and having people that know people and making connections for us, so that we can make a presentation to their group. A lot of the companies had organizations inside of their company, you know, and we would make presentations to them and that group would make a donation and a lot of times that company would donate also. So, we had a lot of good support from so many different companies,

We’re going to have a banner up here on all the companies that have made contributions.

(To be continued)

Come and see the Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Memorial for yourself at the ceremony on 6 June!

Get tickets and learn more here:
https://nvvmf.org/

Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Memorial
11691 South 108th Street
Papillion NE, 68046