Thursday, November 4th 2021, 2:00 pm
A Tulsa man is dropping roses off at the traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall in honor of 17 members of his Officer Candidate School class who died in the war.
"It was an atrocious loss of life," said Vietnam Vet, Army Major Sam Newton.
"Try to understand it. I am still trying to understand it," said Newton, "It is just stuck in me."
300 feet of panels from end to end, covered in more than 58 thousand names. The Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall is standing in Tulsa.
"The average amount of people killed from one officer candidate class is 8- so we had twice as many," said Newton.
He stays in contact with the remaining survivors of his OCS class and with the widows of fallen brothers, and when he can....he comes to see the traveling wall, bringing roses to the panels of his friends.
"Of those 17, there were two Medal of Honor winners,'" said Newton, "It is hard to talk about."
As hard as it is to talk about, Sam wants people to know what happened during this war he wants people to know every name on these panels represents a story, a child, a family broken.
"Remembering not only our 17 who died in Vietnam but the other 58,000 that are on the wall too," said Newton, "It means they are not forgotten."
Sam calls himself an old country boy from Kellyville- and these roses are his way of telling his fallen brothers that all these years later- he still thinks of them. The Traveling Wall will be at the newly named Veteran's Pak off Peoria and 6th from November 4th-7th. The wall will be fully staffed 24/7.
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