Forty-four years ago, Ed Hergert and a group of residents stood in Walnut Park and looked on as a small memorial commemorating 15 Petaluma men who died in the Vietnam War was installed.
On Thursday, Hergert, now 64-year-old, watched as a new plaque was put in during a ceremony to replace the original memorial stolen last December.
Back in 1969, it hadn’t been easy convincing the city to put the simple memorial in the park, with leaders wanting a more “appropriate” place, like the Veterans' Hall.
But for Hergert and his friends, no place could have been more appropriate than Walnut Park, a popular gathering spot for Petaluma teens.
“This was our park and all the hot rods were lined up in the street here,” Hergert recalled Thursday, pointing to Petaluma Boulevard. “We were just a bunch of Petaluma kids, but we were losing so many people that we decided to do something about it.”
The teens put out empty coffee cans and the donations came pouring in, from residents, shop owners and ranchers. Eventually, they had enough to purchase a small plaque, installed on May 30, 1969.
The bronze plaque graced Walnut Park for decades until it was stolen in late December 2012, presumably for the value of the metal.
The theft shocked both veterans and non-veterans, who set about fundraising for a new plaque. The Petaluma Fire Department, McDowell Task Force, Powell’s Sweet Shoppe and others chipped in to raise money to buy a new plaque, which features the same design as the original: a pair of hands hovering over the shape of Vietnam.
“We were angry, upset, it just made us all so sick,” Hergert said about the theft.
On Thursday, as the Petaluma High School choir sang the national anthem and bagpipes sounded their melancholy call, family members, veterans’ groups and residents watched the new memorial get unveiled, a simple, yet moving reminder to the 15 lives cut short.
"When you lose a relative or a friend, the only thing left to do is put their name on something, on a park, a mountain, any place. And when someone takes that name, you have to put it back, no matter what," Hergert said. "We moved on with our lives, the kids, Little League games, wives, but these guys didn’t get that chance."
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