The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum will be dedicating a new monument in honor of the 50th anniversary of National Vietnam War Veterans Day.
The Richard Nixon Foundation hosted one of the country's largest National Vietnam War Veterans Day celebrations at the library and museum in Yorba Linda. Hundreds of Vietnam veterans were in attendance.
Former Secretary of Veteran Affairs, Robert Wilkie, who served from 2018 until 2021 spoke at the ceremony. He also received the national official Vietnam veteran lapel pin.
The monument is being dedicated to all individuals who served in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War that lasted over 20 years. The last American combat troops exited Vietnam in 1973, according to the Nixon Foundation.
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This year marks the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Paris Peace Accords that agreed to an end of the fighting taking place in Vietnam. Although the war continued after it was signed.
The new monument will be a 6-foot-2-inch, 500-pound bronze monument that will depict a soldier running through the jungles of Vietnam in the early 1970s, when Richard Nixon was president.
The creative process for the monument including research began in August 2022. The Nixon Foundation created a committee of Vietnam veterans, members of the Nixon Foundation senior staff and a Gold Star family member from the war, Ron Pekar, the monument's artist.
The research process involved traveling to the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia and the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot Museum in San Diego.
National Vietnam War Veterans Day was first observed in 2017 after former President Trump signed the Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act.
According to the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, almost three million Americans served in the Vietnam War. Close to 60,000 soldiers died in the live of duty and more than 150,000 were wounded. There are still more than 1,500 that remain listed as missing.
