Let’s remember, mourn all changed by Vietnam
No matter how personal or distant the connection, it’s difficult to reconcile emotions surrounding the Vietnam War. Several readers, many of them veterans and friends, reached out to me after reading a series of articles by B.A. Morelli published last month in The Gazette. The articles revisit the decision by a then-20-year-old Marion man, Steve Smith, to violate federal law and burn his draft card in a brief but very public display on Oct. 20, 1965. Reaction to these pieces in which some of those interviewed call for a memorial or some other public acknowledgment of Smith’s action has been predominantly outrage, confusion and disappointment. “I lost friends in Vietnam,” one man said, “and I still haven’t stood before their names on the national memorial. And now someone wants to…