Editor’s note: With rain in the forecast, Saturday’s ceremony to dedicate the new Vietnam Memorial in Vancouver has been moved indoors. The event will be at 11 a.m. in the gymnasium on Vancouver’s Veterans Affairs campus, 1601 E. Fourth Plain Blvd.; the main entrance is at the intersection of Fourth Plain and St. Johns boulevards. The gymnasium is adjacent to the Memorial Garden, where the new monument was built to recognize the sacrifice of 59 Clark County military personnel who were killed in Vietnam.
A plaque honoring the memory of Lt. Dan Cheney has been on display in a Vietnamese village since 2010.
Now there is another tribute to the Vancouver soldier’s sacrifice, and this plaque is in his hometown.
Cheney is one of 59 Clark County servicemen who were killed or declared missing in action during the Vietnam War. Their names are part of a memorial that will be dedicated at 11 a.m. Saturday at Vancouver’s Veterans Affairs campus.
“This memorial is so meaningful; such heart and soul and effort and artistry,” said his sister, Jerilyn Brusseau, who is a keynote speaker.
Cheney was killed on Jan. 6, 1969, when his Cobra helicopter gunship was shot down during the rescue of another helicopter pilot.
“Dan was my younger brother and my best friend,” Brusseau said. “He was a full of life, always had a new idea, always out there going for it. He was on his way to becoming a great leader. Dan and his co-pilot died saving the life of another pilot, who is still alive.”
Cheney, a 1965 graduate of Columbia River High School, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. The posthumous award was presented to his mother, Rae Cheney, another keynote speaker Saturday, and his father, Bernard.
Brusseau, a 1961 graduate of Battle Ground High School, is one of the founders of PeaceTrees Vietnam, a nonprofit organization that promotes person-to-person relationships she calls citizen diplomacy.
Their work includes educational and agricultural projects, and both outreach programs involve a deadly legacy of the Vietnam War: unexploded munitions.
“The work done on the ground, de-mining, is urgent. It’s real time this week. The impact on people today is urgent,” said Brusseau, who now lives in the Puget Sound area. “It’s part of what fuels our passion.”
Their work includes a school in the village of Khe Da, where a plaque explains how it was built to honor Cheney’s memory.
It didn’t take her long to come up with the idea, Brusseau said. The moment she heard the news, she thought about her parents — how this loss would break their hearts.
“Suddenly I realized my parents were not alone. They were joining thousands of other parents, families, wives, sisters, brothers. I suddenly realized that thousands of Vietnamese families were losing their members, as well. I had images of thousands of American families in very deep grief, and thousands of Vietnamese families in very deep grief.”
She said she envisioned that “Somehow, some day, ordinary American families must find a way to reach out to the Vietnamese people, connect and begin to build hope after all the losses on all sides.
“That was 47 years ago. It just came clear as a bell,” she said.
But as far as implementing it, “I had no idea how or when. That day came on July 11 in 1995,” when the United States established full diplomatic relations with Vietnam.
Her mother was part of starting PeaceTrees Vietnam. Rae Cheney recalls that it could still be a sensitive topic, two decades after the conflict.
“Some of the public was not ready to get involved or talk about the Vietnam War,” said the 96-year-old Cheney, now a Bellingham resident.
When Cheney speaks Saturday, she said she will talk about the loss of her son. She also will speak about her trip to Vietnam in 2010.
“A Vietnamese mother was introduced to me the day I arrived. She was 92 and I was 90. She lost two sons,” Cheney said.
She said she never asked which side the Vietnamese woman’s sons were fighting on.
“She lost two boys; I lost one,” Cheney said, “Here we are, embracing in friendship and compassion.”
