GLOCESTER – In November, America will commemorate the founding of the Marines in 1775 during the American War for Independence. Jean Marie “John” Joyal served the Marines from 1966-1969 during the Vietnam War, and this past Memorial Day weekend, for the first time, he was in a parade.
In fact, he participated in three parades, including Chepachet’s.
“I loved it,” he said.
Joyal said he appreciated the warm welcoming waves, smiles, thumbs up, and “welcome home,” greetings he received from parade-goers along Main Street.
Joyal grew up in Woonsocket and for many years resided in Burrilville; today he lives in Texas. At 18-years-old, Joyal and his high school buddies in Woonsocket joined the Marines to serve in Vietnam.
“One didn’t come back,” said Joyal. His name was Paul Durand.
“I’m here today for him, and for my seven best friends,” Joyal said at the Chepachet parade.
Joyal was an infantryman with First Battalion, Ninth Marines, a battalion apparently labeled by Ho Chi Minh as “The Walking Dead.” When the battalion later suffered high casualties, they would refer to themselves by that label.
The vet from Woonsocket was wounded in action. He was awarded the Purple Heart.
Coming home from war or even from basic training, some people in uniform, including Joyal, were harassed and even assaulted by those opposed to the fighting in southeast Asia, the Vietnam conflict.
Upon coming home to America, Joyal recalls he was met by family at the airport in New York. When he stopped at the restroom, he ended up in a fight.
“Three of them against me,” he explained. Then “an Army guy” got into the fray. Army and Marine got together, and the fight was over.
It was the type of unpleasant “welcome home” that some dispute was common at the time, that has been documented by Vietnam veterans.
Times changed. As the parade was about to roll out last Monday morning, Joyal shared his thought.
“I hope it’s easier than it sounds,” he said.
Veteran Bruce Ferreira, of the RI Military Vehicle Collectors Club, drives fellow vets as a volunteer in parades and at other events, whether rain or shine.
“For John to see people our age saying ‘thank you’ and ‘welcome home’ is interesting in that, in their younger days, (they) may have been the same (people) who were protesting us,” explained Ferreira, adding that’s something he thought of after the fact. “Just hearing the ‘thank you’ helps a lot in supporting that our actions of enlisting were the right thing to do, even in the face of those actions being unpopular.”
In his jeep, Ferreira drove his friend Joyal, veteran Vincent Vellucci, and US Army PFC Vincent Doyle who served in 1952-54 during the Korean War.
“I am very proud of today,” said Doyle, who will turn 93 this summer. “I represent all the veterans.”
His son Kevin Doyle also road in Ferreira’s jeep.
Ferreira met Joyal six or seven years ago at Uncle Ronnie’s restaurant.
In the restaurant, a woman Joyal had never met shouted out “Who owns the corvette?”
Not knowing what the stranger might want, Joyal said the vehicle belonged to him.
“Thank you for your service!” she said; for, the woman had noticed the Purple Heart on Joyal’s Corvette.
That woman was Ferreira’s wife, and the encounter at the restaurant was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between the couple and Joyal.
On Monday, Eric Picard was waiting for the parade to commence in Chepachet.
“It’s great that we honor our fallen. If it weren’t for them we would be speaking German or Japanese or Korean,” he said.
With “everyone one fighting with each other today, we can all come together” said the Glocester man.
Picard’s girlfriend, Nicole Gravel, said she appreciates that the small town gets together.
“We need to do this now,” Gravel said.
“You appreciate it more as you get older,” said Glocester resident Ann Tucker of attending the parade.
“You think more about the meaning of it, the sacrifice by the people for our freedom,” added Tucker, age 95.
Tucker noted she has lived in town her whole life, and her children and grandchildren, also from the area, were with her, carrying on the tradition.
The spirit of the family was also present in Chepachet in the names of Tucker’s veteran grandfather, George Greenhalgh, who served America in World War I, and her uncle and brother who served in World War II — relatives whose names are remembered on a monument to military in the town.
On Monday, living veterans, including Joyal and Ferreira, were welcomed at the Memorial Day parade in Chepachet, and the fallen were honored.
