Two local veterans donated books to the Pella Public Library in honor of Veterans Day.

Ron Helm and Ken Hoksbergen of VFW Post 5242 presented Brutal Battles of Vietnam: America’s Deadliest Days and Vietnam War 50th Commemoration: A Time to Honor to Pella Library Director Wendy Street last week. Helm and Hoksbergen both served in Vietnam, and tell KRLS News they want to keep the memories of the conflict alive for future generations to understand the history of the brutal conflict.

“I’m thinking that we do not forget this war,” Helm says. “This is important for us as a generation that it wasn’t a popular war, and we were out there doing our job to be able to do what our government wanted us to do.”

“We need people to know–especially from these books, but also just to remember what we did, we had no choice,” Hoksbergen says. “Our government called us to be in the service, we went and did our job and we’d come home, but we were very unpopular when we came home.”

Both books are available for checkout at the Pella Public Library.