When Alan Conca stepped off the boat at Quonset Point in October 1969 there was no fanfare. Instead, Conca walked out from his Rhode Island National Guard Unit and back into his old neighborhood. 

 One can imagine the moment: after more than a year deployment and seeing combat, walking home through some still, quiet, Rhode Island fall day. Quite the opposite of this past Monday, another quiet morning; quiet, at least, until under first light Alan Conca and 64 other Rhode Island veterans and walked into the terminal at T.F. Green filled with a sendoff crowd packed multiple rows deep, and the Rhode Island Professional Fire Fighters Pipes and Drums welcoming in the day with a wall of music. The veterans would proceed up to their gate, where they were leaving as passengers on Rhode Island Fire Chiefs Honor Flight “Freedom,” a program transporting veterans to Washington D.C. to visit the memorials dedicated to their service. 

This Monday’s Honor Flight was only the second flight out of Rhode Island to take a significant number of Vietnam veterans like Conca. Many of them have never had much recognition at all, given the public opposition to the war that was often directed against them as they reintegrated into civilian life. Conca recalls visiting his high school in the first weeks after returning from his deployment, walking into an old classroom to see a teacher, and hearing insults from the students directed at his back when he walked out the door. He remembers a friend who was walking through New York City in uniform until he was hit by a stranger, at which point he changed out of his uniform in a public bathroom. “Nothing was done for us,” he says. To the people who were not there, who did not see what he saw, Conca says he never said a word about his experiences.

 The veterans on the Honor Flight, after arriving in Washington D.C, follow a packed itinerary which on this particular day includes the National Mall, the war memorials, and Arlington National Cemetery. Conca has been to these sites before – but only ever by himself. He visited  the Vietnam War Memorial to do stone rubbings of the names of the friends he has lost, so that he can take them back with him to Rhode Island. 

 While it is a solitary activity, the others at the memorial are there to commemorate as well. A few years ago, a stranger seeing Conca tracing a name asked who the person was. Conca replied that it was a friend who had been killed in action. The random passerby wrapped Conca up in a hug. “That was nice,” Conca recalls with a nod.  

Michael Clapprood had a similar experience on visiting the Vietnam Memorial some years ago. Clapprood was 18 when he found himself pinned down during the Tet Offensive.  One of the unit’s men had been hit and was in no-man’s land.  Clapprood handed his machine gun over to another Marine and crawled out to pull the comrade to safety.  He took measures to stop the man’s bleeding. Clapprood said the injury was not life threatening, but the comrade died from shock. During the episode Clapprood was hit.  He was sent to Da Nang where after recovering he was hit by a hand grenade receiving shrapnel in the eye.  He was awarded a second Purple Heart, but his selfless action to save a buddy was never recorded.

On his trip to the memorial Clapproood found the name of Frank Bosco, a member of his unit – though not the Marine he dragged to safety. As he performed an etching of the name he turned around to find a man watching. The man asked, ‘do you know him?’ When Clapprood said they were in the same unit, the man identified himself as Bosco’s brother.

Clapprood, who worked at Kenney Manufacturing in Warwick and later as a security officer at Brown University, and Conca, who now lives in Smithfield, both shared these stories before the flight even took off. What was planned to be a full day actually exceeded that: RI Honor Flight founder  George Farrell ended up back home at three in the morning. And yet, even at dinner, after hours of walking in the heat, the veterans continued to tell stories back and forth, about the past and about new memories made with the group.

It was telling that the day’s festivities had already started, not with arrival at the destination but with the gathering of the passengers.

As Conca said before leaving, “I’ve always wanted to go with the guys.