FORT EUSTIS, Va. –
The Department of Defense recently recognized the Transportation Corps Aviation Association as a participant in the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War.
The commemoration, which began Memorial Day of 2012 and will run through Nov. 11, 2025, is held to thank and honor veterans of the Vietnam War, highlighting their service downrange and paying tribute to contributions made on the home front during the war.
According to Ted Cimral, a retired Army colonel and president of the TCAA, the Army Transportation Corps was heavily involved in the war "from beginning to end," providing ship-to-shore cargo operations, highway transport, movement control, aviation and aviation logistics support to U.S., Korean, Australian and Vietnamese forces.
"TCAA is composed of nearly all Vietnam vets," Cimral said. "We are former officers, warrant officers and enlisted men, who flew, maintained, supplied, transported and evacuated more than 10,000 U.S.
Army aircraft, including airplanes and helicopters, during the Vietnam War."
Cimral also highlighted the contribution of the Transportation Corps in the advancement of technology and science, as the corps was in charge of all aviation research and development during the war.
"Our wives and families supported us despite repeat tours and hostile American perception of what we were accomplishing," Cimral said, explaining how their families' contributions fulfilled the commemoration's tenet of service on the home front.
"We're very proud to be recognized by the Department of Defense for our contributions made during the Vietnam War," he continued. "Is it really 50 years ago we were young and fighting for our country far from home? It seems just like yesterday."
The mission of the TCAA is "to perpetuate the history and accomplishments of Transportation Corps aviation and aircraft maintenance units and personnel who served from the creation of the Corps in 1942 until the last aviation mission was transferred to the Aviation Branch in 1988," according to the group's website.
The association's annual reunion, scheduled for July 27, 2013, has been accepted as an official Commemoration event listed on the Department of Defense event calendar. For more information about the commemoration, visit
www.vietnamwar50th.com. For more information about the TCAA, visit
www.tcavnassn.org.