Donald M. Goldstein, a co-author of “The Vietnam War: The Story and Photographs” (1997), described the moment to the magazine as “a hero’s welcome for guys who weren’t always seen or treated as heroes.” After a lost war “that tore us apart,” Mr. Goldstein said, “it was finally over, and the country could start healing.”
What Mr. Veder wouldn’t learn for six months, he told The Guardian, was that the Stirm family’s joyful reunion concealed the agonizing end of a marriage. Three days before Lt. Col. Stirm returned home, he was handed what he called a “Dear John” letter — essentially a breakup letter from his wife, Loretta. In it, Loretta Stirm acknowledged that she’d had an affair, though it had ended before his return, Ms. Stirm Kitching said. The couple later divorced.
In retrospect, Mr. Veder told The Guardian, Lt. Col. Stirm — who was later elevated to the rank of colonel — appeared “stoic” and “very formal, very uptight, walking in a downbeat manner,” although at the time, “there was no indication why.”
Yaroslav John Veder was born in Berkeley, Calif., on Aug. 30, 1926. His parents, Ivan Vedernikov and Anka (Isvoschikova) Vedernikov, had settled in California three years earlier, after fleeing the Russian Revolution and spending time in Manchuria; in the United States, they changed their names to John and Ann Veder.
John Veder, who had studied chemical engineering in Kyiv, worked as a shift foreman for more than three decades at the Shell Oil refinery in Martinez, Calif. Ann was a teacher.
