A group of Vietnam veterans has spent years designing and funding a monument to their fallen comrades from Houston and seven surrounding counties.
Vietnam Combat Veterans Association members, from left, Bobby Schlitzberger, Isidro Rojas Jr., Winslow “Ben” Gutierrez, Dennis Loop, David Ramos and Diego Tristan at the site of the memorial, still under construction, that they have worked on for over a decade to install at Veterans Memorial Park Monday, Nov. 7, 2022 in Houston, TX.There are nine of them to honor 544 .
They’ve tried everything, says Mike Martin, who got drafted in the ’60s and stayed in the Navy until 1972. They just don’t have access to all the databases. Once, he talked to a private investigator. Anything can be had for a price, the investigator told him, but you’ve got to give me something to work with.
“We don’t have much to work with,” Martin says. The others nod. They’re sitting around three white tables pushed together, sipping water from translucent red glasses. Soon enough, like any group of old friends, they're stepping on each other's words. “Maybe we could get some birthdays, we’ve got names—”The monument began with Winslow “Ben” Gutierrez, a man with glasses and a white handlebar mustache. Gutierrez was drafted into the Army in 1965.
Gutierrez wanted to do something to honor Gary and everyone else who never came home. He couldn’t afford a ticket to D.C. to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He imagined there were others in the same position. What if, he thought, he brought a monument to Houston?Bobby Schlitzberger, a former Army man, goes to the same Veterans Affairs office as Gutierrez out on Post Oak Road. He runs a monument company down the street from the Dinner Bell Cafeteria.
“You couldn’t go into a Home Depot without Dennis cutting you off,” Schlitzberger says. The others laugh and chime in.“They thought he was on the payroll—"The way David Ramos sees it, the right doors opened for them and the right time. One of the doors was E.A. “Buddy” Grantham, the youngest of the group and the only one not a Vietnam veteran. He served in the Army in Operation Desert Storm and was formerly the director of Houston’s Office of Veterans Affairs.
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