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Article Last Updated: Sunday, January 26, 2003 - 10:20:26 PM MST

OTHER ARTICLES IN THIS SECTION 2/6/2003 - Revealing Saddam's web of lies - Cooking up Disaster Relief - Latino birthrate in California tops 50 percent for first time in history - Volunteer helps police solve crimes - El Rancho High wins accreditation battle - Whittier resident 'Millie' Riley dies - Bomb threat at middle school called 'practical joke' - 2 incumbents have edge in fund-raisin - Reading the needs of the blind - Around Whittier - Two suspects caught after lengthy chase Vietnam veterans seek place in history By Susan McRoberts , Staff Writer MONTEBELLO -- On July 4, 1970, Lupe Rodriguez learned that her oldest son, Frank, had been shot and found by medics lying on a battlefield in Vietnam. He was barely alive, Rodriguez was told. Just two years earlier, on Feb. 19, 1968, the Montebello mother of five sons received a visit by Marine Corps authorities, telling her that her fourth son, Reginald Rodriguez, 20, had been shot and killed in Quang Tri province. Rodriguez had four other sons in the Marine Corps. Three of her children went to Vietnam. One died there; another returned home seriously wounded. "My third son, Philip, was in Vietnam when Frank was wounded,' she recalled. "His superior officer took him to see Frank.' Frank Rodriguez was in bad shape. He had been sprayed with shrapnel. Tiny pieces of metal had embedded themselves in his body from his head to his hips. His entire left side was swathed in bandages. "When Philip saw Frank, he broke down crying,' the mother said. "Frank put his right arm over Philip when Philip bent to hug him and he said, 'Don't cry. I'm not going to die.' But the chaplain was already there. Frank refused to take the last rites.' Frank Rodriguez did not die then. He returned to Montebello, where officials proclaimed "Frank Rodriguez Day' in his honor. He was killed in 1975, however, when a drunken driver plowed into the back of a car that he was hooking up to his tow truck on the San Gabriel River (605) Freeway in Baldwin Park. "Two weeks later, he got a letter from the veterans hospital in Long Beach,' she said. "He went there once a month because he still had shrapnel in his jaw and they were watching him (in case) it moved toward his brain. It could have killed him. The letter said they had discovered something else.' He was diagnosed with terminal cancer that had spead all over his body. "He served his country,' she said simply. "Whenever the president calls you, you have to answer. It's your country.' Whittier resident Jose Ramos has embarked on a crusade to honor men like Frank Rodriguez, his brothers and the thousands of other U.S. military men and women who served in Vietnam. Ramos, 54, a former Army medic in Vietnam, wants a federal holiday. He calls it, "Welcome Home, Vietnam Veterans Day.' Lupe Rodriguez supports the idea of 'Welcome Home, Vietnam Veterans Day,' which Ramos says should be held Jan. 27, the anniversary of the signing of a peace treaty that led to the end of the war. "My mother was from Mexico and my father was a Mexican Indian, but she taught us that we are Americans first,' Lupe Rodriguez said. "She told us, 'Whatever you have, whatever we have here, we owe to the United States.' "I know a lot of people look at me like I'm crazy, but I don't celebrate the fifth of May or the 12th of September. The Fourth of July is my day, but it's a sad day because my son was wounded.' Rodriguez, a Montebello Human Services commissioner, said while Vietnam veterans already are remembered each year along with other war veterans, on Memorial Day and Veterans Day perhaps a special day of recognition would help heal the hurt. A brotherhood Many Vietnam veterans have found acceptance and recognition among their colleagues. As a result, some feel little need of it from the federal government. In South Whittier, three friends, all Vietnam veterans an Army cavalry soldier, a Navy Seabee and a Navy patrol boat sailor expressed their feelings about "Welcome Home, Vietnam Veterans Day.' "It's kinda late in coming,' said Mike Mangerino, who rode the river boats that shipped supplies to soldiers. "You see how in the Gulf War everybody got the ticker-tape parade. So, a lot of us feel a little left out and kind of jealous, whatever you want to call it. They weren't even there long enough to get sand in their socks.' He thought about the idea of federal acknowledgment. "Selfishly speaking, I'd like to see it, as long as it doesn't become a profit-maker for some people,' he added. Filbert Cuesta Sr. was the Army soldier. "I'd like to be left alone about stuff like that,' Cuesta said. "I love being around my Vietnam brothers and I'll never stop doing that, but we're trying to go forward. We don't want to go backward.' Former Seabee Robert Ortiz thought of the Vietnam veterans who die each year. "A friend of mine who used to have a pinstriping shop in Whittier passed away from Agent Orange,' Ortiz said. "Every time we have a reunion at the middle of the year, the commander tells us we've lost some more guys. You know, it's a little too late for them.' The veterans said that a holiday could increase the amount of attention on the war in history books. Schoolchildren need to learn about the draft, they said. "They should be thankful that there's no draft and that they'll never have to go through this like we did,' Cuesta said. "The draft here took a lot of kids that didn't belong there.' In Vietnam, disinterested draftees were dangerous to themselves and others, said Pete Corodimas of Whittier, who served as a helicopter door-gunner during the war. "It was like a dirty trick. They got us to go over there through the draft. There were a lot of people (fighting) against their will. A lot of these people were either getting themselves killed through their immature antics and spoiled brat attitudes, or they were getting a lot of other people killed.' Mike Mangerino was drafted at the age of 26. He had been married for four years, but the couple had no children. "When I went over there, I was drafted and I didn't want to go in the Army,' he said. "I went in the Navy so I could stay out (of Vietnam). Anyway, I did go and I thought, 'Well, I'm going to fight communism.' So later on, I found out it was a whole different story. They were talking about oil, they were talking about rights and all this other stuff.' Ortiz agreed that if "Welcome Home, Vietnam Veterans Day' prompted teachers to focus on the war, it would be beneficial. "Let them know about what these guys went through,' he said. "A few paragraphs in a history book is not much for all the guys who were killed there.' Lasting memories "This happened to me 35 years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday,' Cuesta said. He was 19 a Latino from South Whittier, dropped into the swamps and rice paddies of Vietnam. His sergeant handed him a rifle and told him to guard the main gate of the camp. "The sergeant kept telling me not to take my eyes off the rice paddy,' he said. "The Viet Cong, they'd be laying in the rice paddy breathing out of bamboo shoots for days and I didn't know that.' Mangerino interrupted the story. "(Most people) can't sit still,' he said. "(The Vietnamese soldiers), they can hold perfectly still for hours, for days.' Cuesta continued his tale. "Three days had passed,' he said. "And, it happened on my shift. They all stood up all of a sudden. There must have been 100 of them all standing up out of the water. I was looking through a starlight scope with a green background. "Look, my skin still curls! They were like zombies coming out of the water. They outnumbered us 10 to one. That'll make a man out of you right away.' -- Susan McRoberts can be reached at (562) 698-0955, Ext. 3029, or by e- mail at sue.mcroberts@sgvn.com .

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