{"id":28782,"date":"2024-03-09T22:28:10","date_gmt":"2024-03-10T05:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/vietnam-veteran-clyde-benally-of-cortez-is-honored-by-quilts-of-valor\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T00:39:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:39:47","slug":"vietnam-veteran-clyde-benally-of-cortez-is-honored-by-quilts-of-valor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/vietnam-veteran-clyde-benally-of-cortez-is-honored-by-quilts-of-valor\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam veteran Clyde Benally of Cortez is honored by Quilts of Valor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Vietnam
Vietnam veteran Clyde Benally was given a quilt by Quilts of Valor. (Jane Hile\/Courtesy Photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Clyde J. Benally, a Navajo who lives in Cortez, was honored March 2 for his service in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n

Clyde was drafted into the Army in 1968 and served until 1970. He was stationed at a variety of bases in the U.S. including Fort Ord (California), Fort Benjamin Harrison (Indiana) and Fort Riley (Kansas). He was deployed to Vietnam and was in the 173rd Airborne Brigade, the first major unit of the Army to serve in Vietnam, beginning in 1965.<\/p>\n

Benally told The Journal<\/em> that he was drafted when he was a senior at Fort Lewis College.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got the notice three weeks before my graduation,\u201d Benally said. \u201cNo parties or no celebrations. I got my diploma and went home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benally was awarded a Quilt of Valor in Cortez at the Veterans Memorial in Veterans Park. He was surrounded and celebrated by family members and friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got my blanket, and it\u2019s warm,\u201d Benally said about his quilt. \u201cIt has a tremendous amount of meaning because we didn\u2019t get the accolades and parades when we came back. We were shunned and called all kinds of names. People even tried to spit on us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The detailed quilt included colors that are meaningful to Navajo culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe incorporated the colors that are meaningful as part of my culture,\u201d Benally said, adding that he plans to wear the quilt around his shoulders at the Vietnam veteran celebration in Shiprock, New Mexico, on Friday, March 29.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m planning on wearing that when I go over there to show it to people,\u201d Benally said. \u201cI may even bring the certificate that came with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Greg
Greg Hile (left), who recommended Benally for a quilt, and Clyde Benally at his Quilt of Valor ceremony. (Jane Hile\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Gail
Gail Braunn (left) and Jane Hile (right) present Clyde Benally (middle) with his Quilt of Valor. (Jane Hile\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Benally has been very active in Cortez, working with the Cortez Cultural Center, the Elks Lodge and Boy Scouts.<\/p>\n

Benally said he got bored during retirement and became a seasonal ranger at Mesa Verde National Park. He was also a lecturer at the University of Colorado and served on the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs and the board of directors at Southwest Memorial Hospital.<\/p>\n

His award ceremony was conducted by Jane Hile, a member of the Quilts of Valor Foundation<\/a>, a nationwide nonprofit made up of more than 11,000 volunteers. Hile said that she and her husband recently moved to Cortez and she is the only Quilts of Valor member in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that we will eventually get a group going here,\u201d Hile said. \u201cOur single mission is to cover veterans and service members touched by war with healing and comfort by honoring them with a quilt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hile said she was honored to provide Benally with a quilt.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe just seems like an excellent human being,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Benally said he was appreciative of the organization for providing him with a quilt, adding that he was glad he met the women who made it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was surprised at how nice it was,\u201d Benally said. \u201cIt was special.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quilts of Valor was started in 2003, and according to Hile, Catherine Roberts started the organization after a dream about a young man, who was deployed. In her dream, the young soldier was sitting on a cot looking forlorn and hunched over, and then \u201cwas wrapped in a quilt and his whole demeanor changed. He was sitting upright and confident. After that, she decided that quilts equal healing, and she started this foundation,\u201d Hile said.<\/p>\n

Now, the foundation is 20 years old with 11,000 active members.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quilters from all over the country, and we make quilts for that single mission,\u201d Hile said.<\/p>\n

Hile shared that her husband Greg Hile, who is also a Vietnam War veteran, was awarded a Quilt of Valor years ago and it changed their life, inspiring her to get involved herself. She has been a member for 10 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really changed our lives,\u201d Hile said. \u201cTen years ago or more, the situation with the Vietnam veterans was still pretty bad in terms of how the country accepted them back. He didn\u2019t know that there were people who wanted to thank him for his service other than his family members.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHis quilt has all these people\u2019s names. and they\u2019re from all over the country,\u201d Hile continued. \u201cHe was just amazed and it changed his pride in his service. So from that, I decided that I needed to get involved and learn how to quilt in order to make Quilts of Valor.\u201d<\/p>\n

To find more information on the Quilts of Valor Foundation<\/a>, visit www. QOVF.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

organization gives quilts to veterans as a thank-you for their service <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,60,29,185],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-28782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-serving-veterans"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80528,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28782\/revisions\/80528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28782"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=28782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}