Vietnam veteran finally feels welcomed home

Stickman is one of the more colorful commenters at Huckleberries Online.

The Coeur d’Alene resident has brightened the lives of local schoolchildren and numerous HBO readers by giving away walking sticks he carves from tree limbs he largely finds on Tubbs Hill, often accompanied by a jar of homemade huckleberry jam.

Stickman is also a Vietnam War vet who feels he finally received the proper welcome home during the Veterans Day observance this month in Washington, D.C. Not only did Stickman chat with Dan Rather, Colin Powell and Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne, but he was part of a parade of Vietnam vets who marched down Constitution Avenue toward the Vietnam Wall.

“It was glorious, with thousands cheering us on from the sidelines,” Stickman commented on Huckleberries Online. “Vietnam vets needed that cheer as we never got it when we came home.”

En route to Washington, Stickman sat next to former “CBS Evening News” anchor Dan Rather: “We were like a couple of old friends getting together after a long time.” Stickman talked to Powell for 10 minutes and met Powell’s wife after a ceremony in which he placed a wreath at the Vietnam Wall. He met the Marine commandant and Kempthorne, too.

As he has done in other years, Stickman took part in a somber ceremony in which the names of more than 58,000 Americans killed during the Vietnam War are read by a host of individuals over four days. Stickman read his 30 names this year in the pouring rain. Hardly anyone was there with him when he did. Yet, he said, it “always brings a tear, as you know they never had a chance to live the rest of their lives like we do.”

Welcome back, Stickman – and all Vietnam War vets.