MEDIA FAM
A weekend to remember
STORY AND PHOTOS BY KENDALL FLETCHER
A HIGHLIGHT of my September was
a road trip to Clarksville, Tennessee,
to attend the city’s Welcome Home
Veterans celebration, an annual week-
long event recognizing Vietnam War
veterans and serving as their never-
received homecoming.
I was excited to have my mom along
for the trip. Neither of us are very good
at navigating new places, so I suspected
that three days in a town we’d never vis-
ited would turn into a story of its own.
We stayed at the Riverview Inn on
the edge of downtown Clarksville.
Many veterans stayed there as well, and
each time I walked through the lobby,
I enjoyed hearing the talk of days long
past between war buddies.
On our first night, we attended the
Remembrance Ceremony at First Baptist
Church downtown. Hearing the lovely
voices of a large high school choir singing
“America the Beautiful” and my Mamaw’s
favorite, “Battle Hymn of the Republic,”
whooshed me back to my years of high
school chorus, and the remainder of the
evening followed nostalgic suit.
We heard from Cindy Stonebraker, a
Hopkinsville, Kentucky, native whose
22
November 2017
father has been missing in action since
1968. She talked about the many people
she’s met along the way, including
the air traffic controller who gave her
father’s plane permission to take off,
and a stranger wearing a POW bracelet
with his name on it. More potently, she
played a recording for us of her father
talking to her on her sixth birthday just
before he went missing. I don’t believe
there was a dry eye in the room.
The next day was a busy one. We
attended a luncheon where we sat next
to Vietnam-era veteran Joe Britton. He
served as a dentist and helped physi-
cians care for wounded soldiers on
bases from Texas to West Germany.
Britton retired as an army officer after
20 years and now runs a private prac-
tice. It was his first time at the event,
and said he was honored to be part of
something that symbolized the sacri-
fices made by Americans during a war
that was so unpopular.
The guest speaker was Bill Robinson,
the longest-held prisoner of war in
American history. Robinson and his U.S.
Air Force crew were shot down in a heli-
copter while on a rescue mission and
Bill Robinson is the longest-held prisoner
of war in American history, held captive
in Vietnam for seven years. He will share
his story at the Government Relations
Breakfast Bistro at Travel Exchange.
captured. He was held in North Vietnam
for seven years, enduring torture and
the loss of his friends, before his release
at the end of the war.
“I can truly say I’m the luckiest man
alive,” he said. “One of the continuing