The April 30 Lewiston Tribune had a short line which said the Vietnam War ended on April 30, 1975 — 49 years ago.

From 1961-75, the U.S. lost more than 58,000 men in the war, and their names are engraved on the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C. Of the names, 217 are from Idaho: six are from Lewiston and a few are from the surrounding area.

Let’s start by listing who the Lewiston men were who were killed in the war.

Rod Mayer was a 27-year-old, 1957 Lewiston High School graduate who played in the band, was a brilliant math student and in the honor society. He attended the University of Idaho on a scholarship where he received a commission as a Navy officer. His beautiful white stone in the Normal Hill Cemetery gives details of his final mission Oct. 17, 1965, when the plane he was piloting off of the USS Independence was lost and never found.

Billy Hepburn, 19, was killed in 1966. He dropped out of Lewiston High School with Joe Schock, and they both joined the Marines.

Schock was decorated in Vietnam, and when he was discharged, he finished high school, attended the University of Idaho and became a war protester. In one anti-war demonstration at Washington State University in Pullman, he was arrested and spent some time in the Whitman County jail.

On May 4, 1970, four protesting anti-war college students were killed by the U.S. National Guard and nine were injured on the campus of Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. It was a terrible mistake and among those angered was Schock. The next night on May 5, 1970, 29 Lewiston National Guard vehicles at the Lewiston Armory were burned up. Schock was caught a few blocks from the fire smelling of gasoline and charged with setting the fire. The judge released Schock on bail, and in October before his court date, he fled to Canada and was on the run for two years. He married and went to France, which does not extradite foreigners wanted for political reasons. His two sisters have visited him in France.

Besides Mayer and Hepburn, other Lewiston men killed in Vietnam were 21-year-old Duanne Akkerman in 1967, and Ed Bogges, Ralph Rotter and Michael Snyder, who were all killed in 1968 at the ages of 23, 24 and 25, respectively.

Dennis McMonigle received the nation’s third highest award, the Silver Star, in 1968 when he was an Army captain in Vietnam. McMonigle was from Lewiston, where his dad owned the Chevrolet dealership. He attended St. Stanislaus Catholic School and then two years at Lewiston High School before graduating from high school in California. I remember him as a little boy when his sister Patty was a friend of mine around 1950. He retired as a colonel from the Army after serving 29 years. He and his wife, Jan, now live in Lewiston, and I visited him recently. Jan Sullivan was a 1962 Lewiston High graduate, and Patty McMonigle is a retired lawyer living in New York City..

My cousin Kent Valley was a combat Marine lieutenant in Vietnam where he received the Bronze Star and other awards. He graduated from LHS in 1958 as a football player and then played for the University of Idaho. Some others who served in Vietnam were the late Kay Kalbfleisch, who taught junior high school in Lewiston. He was an artillary officer who received the bronze star.

Bill Neimann, a 1961 LHS graduate, flew 148 combat missions in Vietnam and received four air medals.

Brothers Richard and John Vassar, both of Lewiston, were helicopter pilots in the Vietnam War.

I realize there are many more Lewiston area men who served in Vietnam, and to them I say thank you, and to those who have passed away, may you rest in peace.

Riggs, 90, is a lifelong Lewistonian. He’s an avid Warriors fan, a retired educator, coach and school superintendent and volunteers his time at the Nez Perce County Historical Society. He can be reached at bdriggo@gmail.com.