Vietnam War veterans in Carbon County visited about 20 cemeteries on Monday, then held a ceremony at the Nesquehoning VFW Post, to observe the end of the conflict.

More than a dozen Vietnam veterans from throughout Carbon participated. The program at the VFW Post included a gun salute.

The event was to commemorate Vietnam War Veterans Day, held each March 29 as a result of the Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act of 2017 signed by former President Donald Trump.

Harry J. Wynn III, former president of the Vietnam Veteran Club of Carbon County, served as the coordinator. He said The War Recognition Act is not just for veterans of Vietnam War combat “but for anyone who served (in the military) in the Vietnam era.”

In 1961, after two decades of indirect military aid, President John F. Kennedy sent the first large force of U.S. military personnel to Vietnam to bolster the ineffectual autocratic regime of South Vietnam against the communist North.

U.S. involvement officially ended on March 29, 1973. Saigon fell to North Vietnam on April 30, 1975, and the last Americans were airlifted out of the country.

Wynn recalled that when he came home to Carbon County after serving in Vietnam, his reception was much better than many fellow veterans received in other areas.

“We came home to Carbon County and we were welcomed with open arms,” he said, noting that in many other areas soldiers returning from that war were treated harshly by opponents of the conflict.

The Vietnam War was the longest and most unpopular foreign war in U.S. history and cost 58,000 American lives, according to History.com.

Fourteen Carbon County residents were killed in action during the Vietnam War: George M. Bevich Jr., Ronald S.H. Christman, Leon D. Eckhart, Clyde R. Houser Jr., Carles R. Jones, Merlin C. Hollenbach, Neal Bollinger, Clifford L. Sell, Edward N. Beers, Paul Hunter, Samuel O’Donnell, Anthony R. Giannangeli, Michael P. Pavlocak and William C. Whitehead.

The Vietnam Veterans of Carbon County club formed on Oct. 6, 2008, in Lehighton, and participated in its first parade, a Veterans Day Parade in Lansford, a year later. Wynn recalled the large crowd of spectators that turned out for the parade.

The Vietnam Veterans of Carbon County has about 100 members. Peter Stidham of the Lehighton American Legion Post serves as president. Twenty-nine members have died since the club was formed.

Prayers were led by Dan Bauer of Palmerton.

The sergeant-at-arms for the gun salute was Curtis Snyder of Lehighton.

Stanley Gieniec of Nesquehoning was the bugler for taps.