(Radio Iowa) – A ceremony on the state capitol grounds today (Tuesday) marked an anniversary for the state’s Vietnam Memorial.  “The Vietnam War Memorial was dedicated 40 years ago on Memorial Day May 28 of 1984 by then Iowa Governor Terry Branstad,” according to Dan Gannon, Commander of the Des Moines Chapter 20 of Vietnam Combat Disabled Veterans.

Gannon says the Iowa Memorial came two years after the National Vietnam Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D-C. Gannon, who served in the Marines in Vietnam says many other Iowans served our country as well. “During the Vietnam War years 115-thouand Iowans served in Vietnam in all branches of the military,” he says. “Their average age was 19. They were still teenagers barely out of high school and some not yet old enough yet to vote for the president’s who sent him there.” Gannon says nearly 900 Iowans gave the ultimate sacrifice.

“Eight hundred and 68 Iowans became casualties of that Vietnam War their names are etched as you can see in the black granite to my to my back,” Gannon says. “There are over 58-thousand-281 names on the Vietnam Wall in D-C.” He says it wasn’t very far into the war before the first Iowan died. “Iowa’s first casualty of the Vietnam War was Navy hospital corpsman second class Gerald Owen Norton. He served with the first Marine airwing and was killed in a helicopter crash in Vietnam on October the second of 1962, Gannon says.

He says Norton, who was from Moulton, was the first corpsman killed in the war. Gannon says the last Iowan killed in combat tragically came just before the war ended. “Nineteen-year-old United States Marine Corps Lance Corporal Darwin Judge from Marshalltown, Iowa. He died on the 29th of April 1975. The last day of the war during a rocket attack. His death occurred just prior to the final evacuation of the Embassy in Saigon.” Gannon says He says five Iowans received the Medal of Honor for their conduct in the Vietnam War.

It is the 17th year there has been a state ceremony for Iowa Vietnam Veterans Recognition Day. All of the names of the Veterans on the Iowa wall were read for the first time in another ceremony that followed the anniversary recognition.