TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – With the Fall of Saigon now more than 50 years in the past, the average age of the Vietnam Veterans on Honor Flight Tallahassee continues to go up.
For the veterans on the 2026 edition of the flight to DC, they knew it was their duty to speak the names of their fallen friends aloud as they searched for them on the black granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.
For Valdosta veteran Alex Vega, it was childhood friend Ernesto Perez on his mind.
“He’s on Panel E,” Vega told WCTV before the flight took off. He’d done his research, ready to find his lost friend in DC.
Honor Flight Tallahassee takes veterans to a half-dozen stops in Washington, D.C, but none prove more powerful than the sloping wall that emerges from the grass.
Three resolute soldiers stand next to it, cast in bronze.
“It brings back memories,” Vega said standing at the base of the statue.
Vietnam Veteran Alex Vega gazes at the black granite of the memorial wall in Washington, D.C..(WCTV)
Vega served as a Navy Corpsman in the war, among the first on scene to triage the wounded in the heat of battle.
“You learn that you’re a little bit more resilient than you thought you could be,” he said.
The 75-year-old is visiting the wall for the first time to honor his friend and to reaffirm a former shame- his service- is today a badge of pride.
“It took me 10 to 15 years to even admit I had served in Vietnam,” he said.
He considers those who served in Vietnam “the red headed step [children] of veterans, so to get something like this. It’s really an honor.”
Howard McMillan smiled his way through the day. The Tallahassee man was reminded of the resilience of America’s finest.
“It was rough. It was combat,” he recalled. “But one thing about soldiers, you notice, it doesn’t take much for us to band together.”
A current member of the U.S. Military shakes the hand of Vietnam Veteran Howard McMillan at the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C.(WCTV)
That famous three soldiers statue evoked memories from McMillan as well.
“Some of the toughest men I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Paul Corley is a proud member of Rickards High School first graduating class in 1966.
Two of his classmates left Tallahassee for Vietnam and never made it home.
“Terry Brady. The other one was Jerry Ingram,” he said while holding an etching of Brady’s name carved in granite.
Vietnam Veteran Paul Corley looks for the names of fellow Rickards High graduates who lost their lives in Vietnam.(WCTV)
“I don’t even know how to talk about it without kind of cracking up,” he admitted.
Even though it was a challenge, Corley was determined to share his friends’ stories that day.
“I wanted to see the wall more than anything,” he said.
Mark Carr was thinking of a lost friend as well that day. The Donalsonville man was on a mission for his South Georgia home, too.
He was trying to collect the names of the ten hometown heroes lost in Vietnam, while also searching for a name that lives in his heart forever.
“This guy, Larry Powell, I flew with him in Vietnam. And he got killed,” he said, fighting back tears.
Donalsonville resident Mark Carr etches the name of a hometown hero who perished in Vietnam.(WCTV)
“All these names and all these people that have sacrificed for what they had,” he said.
Powell also took the time to realize what was not present at this hallowed spot in D.C.
He was a Dust Off chopper pilot in Vietnam, rescuing the injured from battle.
“The way we worked, there are a lot of Vietnam veterans whose names are not on this wall because of what we did,” he said.
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