A Roof Over Their Heads

BY RICHARD McKEE

In central Georgia there are seven different places where one can take refuge from the sun and sit on a granite bench dedicated to Vietnam veterans—a bench, in fact, engraved “Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans.” These benches comprise an ongoing Mid Georgia Chapter 443 project to remember and memorialize a generation of veterans who all too often returned home without recognition. Most of the benches are an easy hop off I-75.

In 2008 Chapter President Michael Lynch saw a bench in Macon’s Washington Park that was dedicated to local poet and musician Sidney Lanier. The idea struck him that Chapter 443 should have a bench to salute Vietnam veterans who never had a Welcome Home parade. Lynch’s daughter, the art director at Wesleyan College in Macon, drew up plans, which included the VVA and POW/MIA logos—one on each arm—and the chapter’s mailing address.

Fundraising was coordinated by chapter member Hank McDade, who has a smile built in his face. McDade could sell poppies to blind old ladies lost in a men’s room at the Macon Cherry Blossom Festival. We sold memorabilia and soft drinks for a dollar a pop. Although poppies were given away, donations were accepted.

That first bench was placed along the Middle Georgia Heritage Trail that runs along the Ocmulgee River in Macon.

A couple years later Bill Carey became chapter president, I was secretary, and Michael Lynch was treasurer. When I saw the chapter’s bench along the river for the first time, I loved it. I asked Lynch: “Why don’t we have one in front of the Macon City Hall?” He told me that was my job. So I went before the city council for approval, and the project grew from there.

Shortly thereafter a third bench was placed in the Georgia Veterans Park in Cordele. After some contractor problems, an Internet search brought us to Granite City Monuments, a company that quarries granite in Elberton, Ga. The company offered the right mix of affordable prices and excellent customer service. It built the bench that we placed in front of City Hall in Warner Robins, twenty miles south of Macon.

Sometime later, Bill Carey and I were at the Dublin, Ga., VA Medical Center, and it looked like it needed something—something like a bench for weary veterans. Later that day we passed through Milledgeville and the Georgia Military College. The campus is composed of beautiful old buildings, including the former Georgia State Capital building damaged during Sherman’s March to the Sea. We found a nice spot for a Welcome Home bench. Granite City Monuments offered a buy-two-get-one-free sale. Voila: We got the hospital and college benches, as well as our seventh—which was placed at the main entrance to the Georgia Agricultural Center in Perry.

Of all the dedication ceremonies, the grandest was held for the Welcome Home bench facing the Macon City Hall. A quintet from the Air Force Reserve Band played military music. The keynote speaker was the very humble and gracious Bill Robinson, a Vietnam veteran and the longest-held enlisted prisoner of war in American history.

Chapter 443 is not done yet; the bench project is a work in progress. Next site: Fort Hawkins. But, at $3,200 per bench, it’s a substantial financial commitment. Recently we’ve begun looking for corporate sponsors willing to partially or fully underwrite one of our Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans benches.

Many people have been involved in the chapter’s bench project. Special thanks to Tom McLendon, Bob Barry, Johnny Goober, Ernie Munson, Rick Newman, George Pappas, and the late Warner Robins Mayor Donald Walker.

These benches will be here long after we are gone. Someday, as a father and child pass by one of benches, the child will turn and ask: “Who were those Vietnam veterans?”

For more information on Chapter 443’s granite bench project, contact Chapter Secretary Richard McKee at VVA, P.O. Box 6711, Macon, GA 31706; 478-971-2599; or mail4mckee@cox.net