SOUTH CHICAGO — South Side veterans who have observed Memorial Day together since the Vietnam War will gather again this weekend as they launch a fundraiser to save a mural honoring friends and neighbors killed in the war.
The observance is 11:30 a.m. Sunday at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Mural, 9100 S. Brandon Ave. in South Chicago. The twice-annual ceremony will return to the memorial site on Veterans Day, Nov. 11.
Veterans and supporters will honor the 12 South Chicagoans killed in Vietnam with a color guard, 21-gun salute and wreath-laying ceremony.
- Edward Cervantez
- Antonio Chavez Jr.
- Leopoldo Lopez Jr.
- Joseph Lozano
- Michael Miranda
- Raymond Ordoñez
- Thomas Padilla
- Joseph Quiroz
- Dennis Rodriguez
- Peter Rodriguez
- Alfred Urdiales Jr.
- Charles Urdiales Jr.
All 12 belonged to the nearby Our Lady of Guadalupe parish, 3200 E. 91st St. — the city’s first Mexican-American Catholic church. The death toll was believed to be higher than any other parish in the United States.
“We were one big family, one big community,” said Fred Carrizales, a Vietnam-era veteran who refers to the killed soldiers as “our 12.”
“Most times, when somebody was leaving for Vietnam, we had a going-away party to let them know, ‘We wish you well. We want you to come back. Our prayers are with you and with your families,'” Carrizales said. “When they didn’t [come back], our communities surrounded the families very much.”
Veterans will also launch a GoFundMe Sunday to preserve the mural, which was completed in 1990. It’s located on the side of a three-flat at 9108 S. Brandon Ave. and neighbors the memorial site. It’s not immediately clear who the original artists were.
The mural features portraits of the slain local soldiers, a rendering of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the names of other fallen Vietnam War soldiers and a poem titled “Remembrance and Acceptance.”
The Southeast Side Vietnam Veterans Organization and the South Deering American
Legion Post No. 1238 are leading the fundraising with support from Ald. Peter Chico (10th), organizers said.
The building, owned by Claretian Associates, needs tuckpointing, organizers said. The process to repair the mortar between the building’s bricks will inevitably impact the mural, which is painted directly on the brick.
The project is expected to cost about $100,000. A big-box store is finalizing plans to commit up to $50,000 worth of materials to the project, Carrizales said. Another $35,000 to $50,000 raised via donations will be used to pay artists as they repaint the mural to its original state, he said.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was completed on land donated by Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1970. Memorial Day observances have taken place there ever since.
“There wasn’t a Memorial Day that went by where we didn’t attend the ceremony,” said Edgar Vargas, the producer of WTTW’s documentary “Our Soldiers, Our Lady of Guadalupe” who grew up in the South Chicago parish.
It’s “a mixed bag of emotions” to relive the community’s losses at the memorial twice a year, said Gloria Chavez-Gomez, whose 20-year-old brother Antonio was killed in 1967. For nearly two decades, she’s also organized annual veteran appreciation dinners through the suburban Lansing Junior Women’s Club.
“It’s heartbreaking, because it just brings you right back to that same day,” Chavez-Gomez said. “But they’re not gone forever, because we keep them in our memories. … They had a duty to serve the country, and our duty is to remember them.”
The memorial was finished five years before the war ended and 12 years before Washington, D.C.’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial was completed.
South Chicago “was a close-knit neighborhood,” so it’s no surprise neighbors acted so quickly — and have remained so consistent — in honoring their fallen soldiers, said Frank Corona, a Vietnam-era veteran and a member of the South Deering American Legion post.
Corona once lived on the same block as Peter Rodriguez, and Leopoldo Lopez was “a good friend,” Corona said. While Corona didn’t have personal relationships with the others, he knew their fathers, brothers and other loved ones through institutions like Bowen High School, Knights of Columbus and the fire department, he said.
The memorial and observances offer younger generations ways to learn about the realities and horrors of the Vietnam War without putting the onus on surviving vets to share their personal traumas, neighbors said.
“I didn’t speak about it for about 40 years, because I didn’t want to talk about some of the things I’ve seen,” said Alfred Sanchez, who served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969 and “used to look up to” Joseph Quiroz growing up in the neighborhood.
The observances are “an emotional time, a very solemn time,” Sanchez said. “It brings back sometimes-unpleasant memories, but we have to remember these guys.
“It’s a great thing [the fundraiser organizers are] working hard to raise some money” to preserve the mural, he said.
Several neighbors said the city should landmark the mural and memorial sites once the mural is renovated, which would protect the sites from demolition or modification.
They also called on local officials, particularly those who have publicly vowed to support South Chicago’s veterans, to commit public funding to the mural renovation.
“It’s a monument. It’s something people refer to on a daily basis,” Chavez-Gomez said. “It’s an important piece of history that our soldiers had given and paid the ultimate price.
“Don’t let that go on the wayside. We need to preserve it and keep it in their memory.”
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