A long overdue tribute offered to a MC Vietnam War veteran

(Editor’s note: Paul Edwin Figg, 75, of Locust Hill passed away on Tuesday, June 28, 2022. His friend Jane Cutler delivered the tribute below at his funeral. “The USA pulled out of the Vietnam War in 1973,” Cutler wrote the Sentinel via email this month. “However, for many of our veterans who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder — PTSD — the war rages within them, especially as they approach death. … Perhaps [this tribute] will be of interest to your readership.”)

The author Madeline L’Engle wrote that each of us is every age we’ve ever been. Inside our aging body is still a spark of us when we were youngsters, teens, young adults and so on. I  remember Paul Edwin Figg at the young age of 19: a man too young to vote in 1966, was drafted and sent to fight in the jungles of Vietnam. His sister Nancy (Freyer of Hardyville) asked that I include the following (the source of which is unknown):

“What Is A Veteran?

“A ‘veteran’ — whether active duty, discharged, retired or reserve — is someone who at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to the United States of America for an amount of up to and including his life.

“That is honor.

“And there are way too many people in this country today who no longer understand that fact.”

At 19, Paul Figg signed that blank check. In short order he was in the jungles of Vietnam fighting the Viet Cong. During these years of war in the mid-60s, Agent Orange was sprayed on these jungles to kill the foliage, thus reducing hiding places for the enemy. The assurances that it did not harm humans was soon proven wrong and within four years its use was discontinued. However, that was too little, too late for Paul Figg and many of the 2.8 million servicemen who served in Vietnam (including my own big brother, I might add).

Young Paul Figg was awarded four military honors — the National Defense Service Medal, the Combat Infantryman Badge, the Vietnam Campaign Medal and the Vietnam Service Medal with a Bronze Service Star. It could have been five awards, but Paul Figg refused the Purple Heart, despite his own wounds, thinking it was more deserved by some of his fellow combatants.

Think about that: before Paul Figg was 21, his sense of integrity, his strong moral uprightness led him to say “no thank you” to this intended recognition of his service. While we thank Paul for his service, I also want to say to him: Paul, I am so sorry we did this to you…