Wyoming Vietnam Vets Get Emotional Welcome Home…

Wyoming Vietnam Veterans found the atmosphere and attitudes of people much different during a recent Rocky Mountain Honor Flight than their initial welcome home more than 50 years ago.

“I came home on a flight into Los Angeles and they landed us outside of the main terminal on the landing field next to some of the hangars,” said Jerry Johnson, of Thermopolis, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam from 1971 - 1972. “And we were escorted from the plane on the field into the terminal and we were called every name in the book, spit on and everything else getting off of the plane.”

Johnson said he and 12 other Wyoming veterans were treated like heroes during an honor flight from Denver to Baltimore, Maryland, for a three-day excursion in Washington, D.C., at the memorial walls for World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War veterans.

Pine Bluffs, Wyoming, Donald W. Eisenhauer American Legion Post 60 spokesperson Jennifer Sherman said the flight was the result of a collaboration between the post and Rocky Mountain Honor Flight.