The 12 Pettis County men who lost their lives in the Vietnam War received a “welcome home” of sorts Tuesday morning as the veterans group that commissioned the county’s Vietnam Veterans memorial formally donated the monument, and funds for its maintenance, to the county.
The move came some 27 years after a 1985 classified ad placed in the Democrat by Dave Dieckman, of Sedalia, helped lift veterans of the complicated conflict from the shadows and saw the formation of Vietnam Veterans of Pettis County (VVPC). The group would go on to raise funds for a number of benevolent causes, including aid to the victims of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, though their primary goal was to erect a memorial to their fallen brothers on the courthouse lawn.
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