CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Vietnam veteran Bruce Eades was cutting grass at the Dogwood Vietnam Memorial about 32 years ago when Jim Shisler, the Chairman of the memorial at the time, asked him to speak at the memorial’s rededication ceremony that year.

Eades had served as a Marine in Vietnam for 400 days, including 300 days of combat. Up to that point, he had never spoken about his experience there, not even to his wife.

“Once I started talking about Vietnam, I got my emotions out,” Eades told Cville Right Now. “I faced my devils, so to speak.”

Now the president of the memorial’s foundation, Eades led its annual Veterans Day ceremony on Wednesday at the memorial, which he has dubbed “The Hill That Heals.”

“You come up here to pray and to think about and understand the young people who gave their lives for us to allow me to be standing here talking to you and you guys talking to me,” Col. James O’Kelley, a Vietnam veteran and head of the memorial’s History and Education committees, said.

Wednesday’s ceremony focused on eight of those young men, all UVA students who served and died in the Vietnam War. O’Kelley read a brief description about each man’s life during the ceremony, highlighting the impact they made before thanking each one for their service and sacrifice.

“The real heroes are not the guys that came home, you know, shot off a machine gun nest and all that kind of stuff,” he said afterward. “The real heroes are the guys who gave their life and sacrificed their future for us.”

Eades echoed O’Kelley’s sentiment, calling those who returned from the Vietnam War “the lucky ones,” while highlighting how those who did not could have done so much with their lives.

“We thought ‘We need to do something,'” Eades said. “And these guys would have done so much with their lives. Who knows what they would have done? They were amazing people, and so we studied them, and honored them, and remembered them. That’s the main thing is to remember them.”

This year’s event was well-attended by local veterans and their families, as well as local and state officials, including Del. Amy Laufer, Charlottesville City Councilor Lloyd Snook, and Robert Tracci, the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia and the former Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney.

The memorial’s Veterans Day ceremony is one of several events that occur throughout the year. The largest is its annual rededication ceremony on April 26, which commemorates the anniversary of the memorial’s dedication in 1966 as the first public memorial in the United States dedicated to those who served in the Vietnam War. Eades said that event has drawn as many as 500-600 people.

“This community is very supportive of veterans,” he said.