In the News

It was a half-century ago, but Bill Dixon is still reluctant to discuss his time in Vietnam.

Today he’s a longtime Plymouth Borough Councilman and beloved figure in the community.

In 1968 Dixon was an 18-year-old who was shipped overseas to serve his country for 21 months in Southeast Asia.

“When I came home there was still a bitterness toward Vietnam vets, and my head wasn’t straight. I don’t really talk too much about my service. There were some bad memories for me. But I was honored to serve my country and I would do it again,” Dixon said. “I had a lot of friends, and people I didn’t know as well who I served with, who were killed in action. And I remember them on a daily basis.”

That’s why attending Saturday’s welcome ceremony for the national Wreaths Across America Mobile Education Exhibit was especially meaningful for Dixon.

“There’s something that comes over me, a certain peace, in knowing that the people who served our country are still being remembered in some way,” Dixon said after walking through the exhibit. “It makes me feel proud.”

Wreaths Across America is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that coordinates wreath­-laying ceremonies on the graves of veterans each December at more than 1,600 locations across the United States, at sea and abroad, according to the nonprofit group’s website.

Its mobile education exhibit is touring Pennsylvania this month, and was welcomed to Plymouth on Saturday by Sons of the American Legion (SAL) Post 463 in conjunction with the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), who organize area wreath-laying ceremonies.

The exhibit’s visit to Plymouth, just outside the Wyoming Valley West High School athletic fields, opened with a ceremony honoring veterans and fallen warriors, including remarks by SAL, VFW and DAR members, as well as Plymouth Mayor Frank Coughlin, state Rep. Gerald Mullery, D-Newport Township, and U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Moosic.

Congressman Cartwright said that the event reminded him “that we are all united under the same flag, under the same ideals, the ones our veterans fought to protect and defend.”

“The work done by groups like American Legion Post 463 remind us that honoring our veterans is not just a one-day affair. It is a 365-day-a-year affair, a commitment to those who serve our country,” Cartwright said, adding that protecting veterans interests “is not a partisan issue,” and is something he has committed himself to during his time in Washington.

That includes legislation introduced this year to support veterans whose health has been affected by their military service, Cartwright said, referencing the Camp LeJeune Justice Act, in response to toxins in the drinking water at that well-known Marine facility. Another bipartisan initiative Cartwright introduced was the Veterans Agent Orange Exposure Equity Act, which would expand exposure presumption to those who served not only on the ground in Vietnam, but those who served on the ground in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.

“We’re no longer taking the position that we weren’t there. Everybody knows we were there,” he said.

That resonated with Dixon, who took a few moments after the ceremony to talk with Cartwright and thank him for those efforts.

“I’m getting older, and my body is getting frail from the chemicals and defoliants,” Dixon said.

“I thank God that I made it this far,” he added, recalling that many of his colleagues did not.