Sometimes, the kids lead and the adults follow.
Sometimes, they see things with a pair of fresh eyes that the weary eyes of age miss. This is one of those times.
The year was 1972 and nobody wanted to talk about Vietnam.
Our boys came home from war to a country that turned a cold shoulder to them, as if it was their fault we had gotten into this seemingly never-ending quagmire that took the lives of more than 15,000 young, American men, and left 109,000 more wounded, many severely.
For what?
Only later would the responsibility fall where it should — on the political and military leaders making flawed decisions, not the troops paying the consequences for them.
Dennis DeYoung was 8 in 1972, and he saw it. Bob Luszczak was 11, and Janet Petty, 14. They saw it, too. All the members of the Granada Hillbillies 4-H Club saw what so many adults couldn’t or wouldn’t.
It wasn’t right to turn our backs on our Vietnam vets as they came home. But, what could they do? They were only kids.
The San Fernando Valley was still a hub of farming and agricultural activity, and 4-H clubs — head, heart, hands and health — were popular with kids whose parents enjoyed getting their hands dirty working the soil with their children and raising livestock to show at the Devonshire Downs Fairgrounds in Northridge.
It was a tradition passed on until it wasn’t anymore. The old San Fernando Valley ways were slowly dying.
The kids in the 4-H club were looking for a community service project that year, and their eyes fell on a sliver of land — a small traffic island covered in weeds — an eyesore in the middle of Granada Hills.
“We decided to make a Vietnam memorial on that traffic island for the 25 young men from Granada Hills who died fighting in ‘Nam,” said DeYoung, who went on to become a financial planner and stockbroker.
“We washed a lot of cars that year to raise the funds,” added Petty, who became an elementary school teacher. “Our parents supported…
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