Vietnam War memorial brings closure to Cupertino vets

Dennis Whittaker had a dream to bring the Vietnam memorial wall to Cupertino.

Having served in the Vietnam War as a platoon leader, and having lost three teammates on a mission gone wrong, he felt a call to bring the wall to his home city and commemorate their lives. After more than one year of planning and raising $13,500 for the installation of the traveling wall, the 360-foot-long, 8-foot-tall replica was brought to Cupertino.

It’s an 80% replica of the wall that exists in Washington D.C., provided by the America’s Freedom Tribute, and lists the names of U.S. soldiers who died serving in the Vietnam War. The last time Cupertino had a Vietnam memorial wall brought into the city was roughly 15 years ago.

The wall was installed Wednesday at the Cupertino Memorial Park and is being taken down Saturday after 11:30 a.m. Seeing the names of Whittaker’s men engraved on the wall has brought him a sense of closure and peace.

“It’s very meaningful to me that it brings a closeness to those who you were in combat with for six months,” Whittaker told San José Spotlight. “I keep showing my daughters and my grandkids where my guys are on the wall. I point to them. I touch them. I have a lot of people my age who are Vietnam veterans, and I help them, hopefully, come to peace of mind as well, so we can say hi to our buddies on the wall.”

Whittaker, 80, stands at about 6 feet tall. He jokingly calls himself “Dennis the Menace” and the “luckiest lieutenant you’ll ever meet.” He talks about the seven times he should’ve died while in combat.

One of those times was July 27, 1971, when he was scheduled to be on a mission, but his leader took him off that assignment to work as a general’s aide. Another platoon leader, John Albert Gross, replaced him. When the helicopter carrying Gross and his team took off, they landed in an area that had been booby trapped, instantly killing Gross. Whittaker had just shared beers with him at a United Service Organizations entertainment show a few days prior, where The Doobie Brothers, a band formed in San Jose, played.

“He was a great, great man,” Whittaker said. “He had just gotten married.”

Another time he beat death was July 31, 1971 when his teammates, Randy Lee Kaylor, Robert Anthony Piper and Richard James Duplessis, were sent on a mission to fight the Viet Cong, the communist-led guerrilla army. They were the first helicopter to land in an area strewn with mines. All three died in an ambush. Had Whittaker not been working as the general’s aide, he would’ve been in the field leading his men.

“I think about them on the specific dates they died,” Whittaker said. “They’re always going to be my kids, so I have to take care of them. That’s why I brought the wall here.”

Veterans organization American Legion Post 642 helped sponsor the wall, contributing $2,000. Arturo Thiele-Sardina, the group’s finance officer, said a reason why they wanted to bring the wall to Cupertino is because of the significant number of Vietnam War veterans.

Nearly 40,000 veterans reside in Santa Clara County, 13,800 of whom are from the Vietnam War era.

“(The wall is) a firm and vivid reminder that freedom isn’t free,” Thiele-Sardina told San José Spotlight. “There’s a cost, and when you see the wall, it’s the human cost — those people who gave their lives for their country.”

Thiele-Sardina said the names etched on the wall of those who lost their lives only signify part of the cost. Those who survived the war carry other wounds, whether physical injuries such as maimed bodies, or the invisible wounds of post-traumatic stress disorder.

“As Americans, we owe it to those veterans to take care of them for the rest of their lives,” he said.

About 58,220 U.S. soldiers died in the war, with another 300,000 wounded. Approximately 2.7 million Americans were deployed to fight in Vietnam, and more than 8.7 million Americans served in the military over the span of the war.

It is estimated that about six million Vietnam War veterans are alive today.

Thiele-Sardina believes the U.S. is treating veterans well now, compared to when Vietnam veterans returned home and were shunned due to the country’s outlook on the failed war.

“Overall, America and our legislators realize the importance of veterans and the role that the veterans play,” he said. “We still have a big issue with the homeless veterans. A lot of the various veteran organizations are working with the local communities to try to reduce and take care of those homeless veterans.”

Last year, Santa Clara County’s homeless veterans population hit a milestone. The number of veterans who are homeless dropped to its lowest level since tracking began 20 years ago at 378 people, according to the latest point-in-time count.

Contact Joyce Chu at [email protected] or @joyce_speaks on X.