When Henry King returned home from serving in Vietnam in 1970, there were no parades or official welcomes. He didn’t arrive with his unit; he quietly passed through airports not drawing attention to the fact that he was military.
“They told us when we got to the states if we got civilian clothes to change into them and we’d probably get spit on. I didn’t get spit on,” said King, who did notice people turning away from him.
On Wednesday, King was among the Vietnam veterans at the Augusta VA Medical Centers uptown division who attended a “Welcome Home” event, celebrating the men and women who served in the war.
King spent a total of six years in the military, divided equally between active duty and the Reserves and said that being honored and welcomed home meant a lot to him.
The April 15 program also featured comments by Vietnam veteran Dennis DuPuis who had three homecomings after his tours in Vietnam, where he was a helicopter pilot.
“I came home in August. There wasn’t any welcome home. There wasn’t a welcome home for my dad or my brother or let alone my brother’s wife who was a nurse when he was wounded,” he said. “We didn’t know when we were coming home.”
DuPuis called his fellow servicemembers the survivors of the war and also credited the military spouses and mothers as survivors.
His own mother endured his father being in Vietnam and both of her sons seeing action in the country during the 1960s.
At times, his speech was punctuated with emotion especially when he talked about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, which he’s visited many times. Other monuments in Washington, D.C. commemorate World War I, World II and other conflicts, but only one, he said, is dedicated to the veterans with the names of those who died or are missing etched upon its shiny black granite.
“It’s hard to go there,” he said. “It’s an awesome memorial.”
The celebration ended with veterans receiving pins, and the 282D Army Band from Fort Jackson, South Carolina, playing upbeat songs.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards, is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award and was named Augusta Magazine’s best local writer in 2024 and 2025. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
