MADAWASKA, Maine — When the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated at Bicentennial Park in 1996, the soldiers and friends who brought the project to life most likely had no idea they would be back 20 years later to fight for the dignity of what some consider hallowed ground.
The inscription on the memorial reads, in part, “Tears are still shed. Lives are still shattered.”
As he stood beside the memorial recently, Jack Myers said, “We didn’t know how true those words would be.”
Myers, who grew up in Madawaska and now lives in St. Jacques, New Brunswick, and his friend Marcel Gendreau of Madawaska are both Vietnam veterans and were among a small group that worked to erect the memorial.
The two recently talked about their efforts to honor the soldiers from the St. John Valley who died in Vietnam, and shared their disappointment and anger over a new restroom facility the town built this month, which they and others say is located too close to the memorial.
“It’s like pissing on our dead,” Myers said, explaining that he and others think of the memorial as a sort of final resting place for their comrades.
“It’s a blow to us,” Gendreau said. “It shows total disregard for the 21 names on the memorial.”
Bicentennial Park, which hosts regular summer music concerts and Acadian Festival events, previously had a single portable toilet and no sink on site. The town had received multiple complaints about the lack of facilities and also about the smell of the portable unit from both neighbors and people using the park. The new bathroom, which features running water, two toilets and a urinal, was hooked up in time for the first summer series concert on June 16.
Although the town of Madawaska manages the park and is the entity that applied for the building permit, Town Manager Ryan Pelletier said the bathroom’s final location was up to the parish priest because the Catholic Diocese of Portland owns the property located across the street from St. Thomas Aquinas Church.
Gendreau said the parish consulted with neighbors surrounding the park about possible locations for the new bathrooms, but not any veterans.
“At least involve us,” he said.
The priest could not immediately be reached for comment. Town Manager Pelletier said in a June 23 email that no one from the town had contacted any of the neighbors during the process, but that an adjacent property owner who was present when the location next to the memorial was proposed is a member of the local American Legion.
Both Myers and Gendreau said they struggled for years dealing with horrible memories of Vietnam. Even today they are still coping. Unable to hold back tears, Gendreau, who was in an artillery unit during the war, recalled the soldiers he saw return from the front lines.
“They were rags,” he said in a soft voice. “These were young men.”
“I was an infantryman,” Myers said stoically. “I have to live with the things I did. The biggest issue is the shame.”
Both men said they knew local Vietnam veterans who were unable to find any peace and eventually took their own lives.
Raising funds, building and dedicating the memorial 20 years ago was a way for the two men and other local veterans to heal, they said.
Myers said the idea for the Madawaska memorial came to him and others on a ride back from the veterans cemetery in Caribou more than two decades ago.
“A friend told me it would never happen,” he said. “I told him, ‘Watch me.’”
Following five years of fundraising, the members of Chapter 518 of the Vietnam Veterans of America had enough money to erect the memorial.
Myers said they placed the memorial at Bicentennial Park, with permission from the diocese, rather than at a Veterans of Foreign Wars or American Legion post to focus on the St. John Valley veterans who served in Vietnam.
“We built it for the people, as well as [for our] own healing,” Gendreau said.
Veterans, friends and the families of 21 fallen St. John Valley soldiers memorialized at the site attended the dedication on June 29, 1996.
Myers cared for the site until doctors diagnosed him with liver cancer four years ago and gave him little chance of survival. He has since received experimental treatments and has recovered.
But he said he was concerned at the time about who would take care of the memorial.
By that time, the St. John Valley Chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America had become inactive, and he said there were few Vietnam veterans remaining in the area who wanted to take on the responsibility.
“I thought I was going to die, so I had to do something … So, I asked the [Madawaska] American Legion if they wanted it. They said yes.”
Myers and Gendreau said the emotional connection for many to the memorial is still strong, and a growing number of veterans in town are upset about the placement of the new bathroom facilities at the park.
After construction had started, about 50 members of the American Legion Post 147 met with Pelletier and Selectman Vincent Frallicciardi to express their concerns about the facility’s proximity to the memorial.
Support for relocating the bathrooms away from the war memorial seems to be growing.
Nearly a dozen local veterans attended a Madawaska selectmen’s board meeting Monday evening, June 27, to voice their concerns about the new public restroom facility at Bicentennial Park.
“I apologize,” Selectman Chad Carter told the veterans at Monday’s meeting. “If I had known it would have this impact, I would not have supported it.”
“You are forgiven,” veteran Vern Levesque responded. “Now, help us fix it.”
The board agreed on Monday to form a committee with local veterans to work together to find a solution that would be agreeable to all parties.
If the facilities are not moved, some veterans have suggested that the memorial be relocated.
Ultimately the fate of the memorial is in the hands of members of the local American Legion Post.
Myers and Gendreau feel that relocating the bathrooms would be a more “suitable and acceptable” solution.
“We don’t want to move the memorial [to another location in Madawaska],” Myers said. “I’ll move it to Caribou first.”
“People will tell a veteran, ‘Thank you for your service,’ and then they let this [bathroom issue] happen,” Gendreau commented. “It’s still emotional for us.”
Gendreau and Myers referred once more to the words etched on the memorial to sum up their thoughts: “Some think, ‘It’s in the past. Does it matter?’ Yes, it does.”