On the east bank of the Hudson River, in the City of Troy, New York, stands one of America’s finest tributes to the men and women who fought, and died in the Vietnam War. The Rensselaer County Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial, dedicated in 1991, after nearly five years of private planning and fund raising activities, stands in Troy’s Riverfront Park.

This beautifully designed and constructed memorial consists of three main elements;

1. a wall, in the form of a sandbagged bunker, on which are listed the names of Rensselaer County’s 45 sons who gave their lives in service to their country.

Their epithaph reads;

“We shall be remembered: As children we played, as men we fought, as brothers we will always be together.”

2. a ten foot tall, bronze statue of three American combat servicemen: their uniforms, equipment, and weapons, representing all branches of service, and covering the complete timespan of the Vietnam War.

3. an anchor chain of forty links, taken from a U.S Navy destroyer that served in Vietnam: each link paid for by a $1,000 donation, given by a member of the “Forty Link Club”, and dedicated to a particular person, place, or event in the war.

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