On Veterans Day, Some Vets Are Left in the Cold

As the nation’s veterans are honored at Veterans Day ceremonies around the country, men and women who served overseas during the Cold War – from the end of World War II from September 1945 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991 – are seeking additional recognition.

“That’s always on my mind, what I went through,” Tom Cameron, 76, of Troy told the Detroit Free Press. “What I want is some kind of memorial in D.C. for the veterans that got killed over there. People don’t even know about it.”

A veteran of the U.S. Army’s 12th Cavalry, 3rd Armored Division, Cameron’s unit lost 16 people in an accident during training exercises in Grafenwoehr, Germany, on Sept. 2, 1960. An 8-inch, 200-pound howitzer shell overshot its target in what Cameron told The Oakland Press was a “human error.”

Those killed had just arrived at Grafenwoehr the night before. They and millions of other American soldiers were deployed there for more than four decades to become acquainted with weaponry and technology that would be used should tensions with the Soviet Union flare.

They were manning B-52s, and “had to be prepared as if they had to be sent to war tomorrow,” said Mark Sutton, a spokesman for the American Legion Department of Michigan, told the Free Press.

An authorized Cold War service medal or official monument on the National Mall would “at least get some formal recognition that the Cold War was more than just a period of unpleasantness and that the Defense Department has never owned up to recognizing it,” historian and past chairman of the American Cold War Veterans Frank Tims told the Free Press.

Most of the missions were political and strategic and intended to prevent an all-out nuclear war with Russia, but there were casualties – 123 of whom are still classified as missing in action, American Cold War Veterans says on its website.

Those who served during the Cold War did so under the veil of secrecy, and they were considered an important vanguard in America’s ultimate victory. Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Michael Glenn “Mike” Mullen, who served as the 17th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2007-2011, said in 2005 that Cold War veterans’ “steadfast efforts preserved a delicate balance, and, because of you, the global war that many of us feared never came to pass.”

Many veterans who served during the time think that entitles them to more than the Cold War recognition certificate, authorized by Congress in 1999. Many of the other privileges granted to veterans are denied – for example, membership in the American Legion or the Veterans of Foreign Wars, both chartered by Congress and for wartime veterans only.

Legislation approving a Cold War service medal was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in June, but is stalled in a subcommittee. Some veterans believe the Defense Department has thwarted the effort.

A now-closed petition on Change.org states that efforts to authorize the service medal were stopped because “it was stated it is unnecessary.”

“This disrespect of Cold War veterans, (who) often served secretly, and were victorious, must be put to an end immediately. … All veterans deserve respect,” the petitioners state in a letter to Vice President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

An ultimate indignity to the Cold War veterans, Cameron said, may be that the only recognition of the tragedy is not on the National Mall, but in Germany. He read about it in a military publication under the headline, “Small plaque keeps memory of 16 soldiers alive.”

“I’m wondering, why the hell don’t we have a memorial in Washington?” Cameron told The Oakland Press. “There should be a memorial in Washington, but nobody knows about it.”

Michael Saurino, a New Yorker whose brother died in the tragedy in Grafenwoehr, also thinks Cold War veterans deserve more respect. He was 15 when his brother died.

“Basically, all I wanted to get is some little medal, or some recognition for my mother,” Saurino told The Oakland Press. “My mother’s 92 and she’s kind of been carrying this around for like 54 years. I feel personally that if anybody gave their life in the military, which is the ultimate sacrifice, and you’re in uniform, you died for your country regardless of how you died. Do you always have to be shot by the enemy?”

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The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago Monday, on Nov.10, 1989, signaling the beginning of the end of the Cold War. (Photo: Raphaël Thiémard / Flickr / Creative Commons.)