The new memorial was installed in Sunset Veterans Park and is located near the partially completed Agent Orange Memorial, which honors post-war casualties of toxic chemical exposure.

In my brief letter, I did not elaborate on the relationship between freedom and American support for South Vietnam. This is because that topic was simply beyond the letter’s scope.

In this account however, I provide some details about how the Vietnam War (1955 -1975), was a struggle for freedom. I decided to do so for the benefit of Utahns who grew up in a post-war generation and did not experience the era as I did.

Because of nuclear proliferation, that era was a rather dangerous time when American foreign policy was heavily influenced by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), also known as the Soviet Union.

Although the Soviets were one of our allies during WWII, relations became somewhat strained after the war. One reason is because democratic ideals of America were not compatible with communist ideals of the USSR. In fact, those ideologies remain at odds to this day.

Their difference was highlighted in a July 3 speech at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota by President Donald Trump. In his speech, the president emphasized the threat of communism to American freedom by suggesting that communism threatens our way of life.

During the Cold War (1945-1991), that threat was certainly real. To deal with challenges posed by the precarious era, U.S. policymakers devised strategies and championed concepts to stop the expansion of communism from the USSR.

The key U.S. strategy was containment. It was facilitated by a concept known as the Domino Theory. The concept’s premise was that if one country fell to communism, so would its neighbors. The idea was likened to a row of tumbling dominos.

The Domino Theory was used to justify intervention in foreign affairs. In the case of Vietnam, for instance, there was concern that the fall of democratic South Vietnam to communist North Vietnam would cause the collapse of other democratic countries in the region.

U.S. involvement in Vietnam was quite long and extremely costly. The presence of American combat troops came to an end there shortly after the 1973 Paris Peace Accords were signed. During the conflict, some 58,000 military personnel were killed.

In 2025, Larry Kerr, chairman of the Utah Agent Orange Veterans Foundation, estimated that about 750,000 veterans had died due to exposure to Agent Orange and similar toxic herbicides used as defoliants in Vietnam by the U.S. military.

Hostilities in Vietnam resumed after U.S. troops withdrew. The war there officially ended in 1975, when Soviet backed forces of North Vietnam captured Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam.

Although a free and democratic society ended with the collapse of Saigon, the days of the Soviet Union were numbered. This was partially due to the commendable service and tremendous sacrifice U.S. military personnel made during the Vietnam War.

The valiant and determined efforts of those service members helped diminish valuable Soviet resources both during and after the war, which ultimately contributed to the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

The demise of the Soviet Union marked the end of the Cold War and America’s decisive victory in that conflict. It was an outcome that ended a repressive empire and helped maintain the liberty Americans have cherished for over 250 years.

Nelson Thibault is retired from the US Navy and currently lives in Salt Lake City.