November is a thoughtful and busy time for veterans of the United States military. Celebrations, parades, reunions and remembrances occur from big cities to small towns up and down and all across the country.
While a large number of the Men of BRAVO! were in San Diego with the Khe Sanh Veterans group participating in Veterans Day ceremonies, in Liberty Lake Washington, former Navy Corpsman Greg Vercruysse was being honored with a memorial at the Liberty Lake Fallen Heroes Circuit Course.
The mayor of Liberty Lake and Greg Vercruysse’s mother cutting the ribbon for the ceremony honoring Greg.
© Dean Vercruysse 2014
I have written to some extent about Greg and the other men of Bravo Company who were killed and wounded on June 7, 1967 in an ambush off of Hill 881 South, so return readers to this blog are familiar with Greg’s story as well as what occurred to the other twenty men who were killed in that action.
With that in mind, I am not going to belabor the memory anymore except to state that what happened at Liberty Lake on 11/11/2014 was a fine example of the honors that have belatedly come to a lot of veterans of the Vietnam War.
Former Corpsman John Kerr being interviewed by KREM-TV.
© Dean Vercruysse 2014
Also remarkable to me was the fact that Navy Corpsman John Kerr, also with Bravo Company at that time and Greg Vercruysse’s buddy, traveled across the country to Liberty Lake to honor Greg’s memory along with Greg’s mom and brother and respectful citizens of Liberty Lake.
You can read more about the event at http://spokanevalleylibertylake.kxly.com/news/news/143231-liberty-lake-honors-sailor-killed-vietnam or watch a well-produced news report from TV station KREM here.
Navy Senior Chief Spinden and former Staff Sergeant Wiese were instrumental in honoring Greg.
© Dean Vercruysse 2014
The pictures in this blog post of the Liberty Lake event are courtesy of Greg’s brother, Dean Vercruysse.
Semper Fidelis from the men of BRAVO! to the Vercruysse family.
On the screening front, we are pleased to announce that BRAVO! will be shown at Idaho’s historic Egyptian Theater in Boise on March 30, 2015. We will post updates to this event here as they become available.
If you or your organization would like to host a screening of BRAVO! in your town this spring or summer, please contact us immediately.
DVDs of BRAVO! are available. For more information, go to http://bravotheproject.com/buy-the-dvd/.
BRAVO! has a page on Facebook. Please “like” us and “share” the page at https://www.facebook.com/Bravotheproject/. It’s another way to stay up on our news and help raise more public awareness of this film.