It is a thank you, they say, that should have happened a long time ago.
One by one the town of Waterford in Camden County called up over 200 Vietnam War Veterans to be honored and recognized in light of the kind of welcome home and respect they did not receive when they came home from the war.
"It's just best to forget it and not talk about it, because some of us don't want to remember where we were," said Joe Knorr.
The Veterans were deeply grateful to the town of Waterford for recognizing what they went through in Southeast Asia and what they endured when they returned home, many times with anti-war protestors hurling insults.
"It was like isolation and he was right about taking your uniform off in California, because it wasn't the place to be, you know, in the United States at that time if you were in the military," remembers Knorr.
Two of the men are survivors of the infamous battle of Firebase Ripcord, the confrontation with the North Vietnamese Army along the infamous Ho Chi Minh trail.
"We were in the bottom of the little valley on the bottom of the hill. It was 76 of us, and we got attacked one morning on July 22nd. It was 76 of us, and only 6 of us that weren't wounded or killed," recounts Frank Marshall.
"It went on for several weeks, and after it started it was like several months," said Joe Baggett, a Delta Force Veteran.
A former Navy Seal proudly remembers his role.
"During the Vietnam War, Seals were tasked with counter insurgency warfare, ambushes, body snatches; that type of thing, and a lot of reconnaissance," explained former Navy Seal, John Chalus.
All of the Vietnam Vets called out on Saturday's honor roll were either born or raised in Waterford or live there now.
For so many of them, the Vietnam era is still such a bitter memory.
"Sometimes you're almost embarrassed to say well, I'm from the Vietnam era. It's like the other wars they all suck, every one of them," said Jon Becker, a Vietnam Marine.
Time does not heal all wounds.
