A tribute to veterans: breathless awe and tears

Local public officials and combat veterans from several U.S. conflicts peppered an audience of more than a thousand people Sunday afternoon at this year's Memorial Day weekend flag-waving extravaganza at Calvary Christian Center.

A Grateful Nation Remembers, which runs through today, pays tribute to war veterans and fallen service members, and features a military vehicle display and Iraq and Afghanistan war memorial.

The centerpiece of the festivities, however, is a theatrical production re-enacting Vietnam War scenes, and a special effects-enhanced replica of "The Vietnam Wall."

"Politicians have made some bad decisions," said Lead Pastor Michael A. Ciociola in introducing this year's Vietnam War service member tribute, directed by his son, Worship and Fine Arts Pastor Michael D. Ciociola. "But you are our heroes."

The play features an extensive clip from wartime radio star Adrian Cronauer's program, beginning with his famous "Good morning, Vietnam" greeting. Late 1960s music from the show serves as an overture, and is laced with protest, politics and drug references.

President Richard M. Nixon's voice laments a fifth Christmas fighting "in a war far away."

The script focuses on a U.S. Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, or M.A.S.H. unit, at Camp Bearcat in Bien Hoa Province and a dedicated medical team tasked with treating wounded soldiers and Marines.

Smoke, mortar blasts, machine-gun fire, a radioman's urgent calls, and a fan-blown breeze from a descending Huey helicopter are just a few effects the church makes use of in the elaborate production.

Current politics makes its way into the play's script. One comment urging a young medic after a second tour of duty in Vietnam to "get home and pay lots of taxes" elicited harrumphs from the crowd on Sunday. Another line categorized Americans as either "patriots or protesters."

Fallen soldiers are honored by way of a replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D.C.

With help from the church's extensive crew of set, lighting and effects designers, the production's final tableau, which borrows from a famous Lee Teter painting, was met with breathless oohs and ahhhs — and some tears — from the crowd.

CONTACT reporter Nancy Pasternack at 749-4712.