Soldiering on at El Cajon Viet Veterans Memorial — 51 Years After End of War

Dick Lemire graduated from a Catholic school in Montebello 60 years ago and married his high school sweetheart.

Soon he had a “nice job” working for the L.A. Department of Water and Power.

“All of a sudden, I started seeing guys I was working with starting to disappear,” Lemire said Thursday night while volunteering at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial replica at El Cajon’s Wells Park.

“As soon as they turned 21, they were getting drafted — going into the Army or the Marines,” said the Ramona resident, 77.

So Lemire — whose father-in-law was in the Navy and other relatives served in World War II — thought: “I got a choice in this matter. I think I’m going to enlist in the Navy.”

That was 1966. He’d stay in the military for “30 years, three months, one day” — retiring as a chief warrant officer 4.

He’s still serving, though.

Along with perhaps 400 others this weekend, he was taking a shift Thursday at “The Wall That Heals,” open 24 hours a day.

He laughs and says: “I should have learned, you know, that NAVY stands for ‘never again volunteer yourself’, but I ended up volunteering for a lot of stuff. I look at it as payback” for a fulfilling career.

“They treated me very, very well,” he said, “and after I got out of the Navy I went to college as a bona fide freshman at 51 years old.”

After earning a math degree, he taught at El Cajon Valley High School for 14 years — only blocks from Wells Park and the haunting memorial replica on its eastern edge.

Lemire, who learned of the need for volunteers at Ramona VFW Post 3783, also is a sheriff senior volunteer in Ramona and works with the Chamber of Commerce and the local Vineyard Association.

“I have a vineyard in my back yard, (and) support the wineries up there,” he says.

March 29 marks National Vietnam War Veterans Day — 51 years since the departure of the last American troops from Vietnam in 1973.

Lemire soldiers on.

“I got to do the wall today and I’ve got the education center over here on Sunday” when the display ends at 2 p.m. “So I volunteered twice.”