Some Ohio veterans of the Vietnam War don't want a special day to recognize their service or are agnostic about the idea. So it's a strange position that the General Assembly finds itself in, as it considers creating an official observance.

State Sen. Mark Wagoner, R-Toledo, introduced Senate Bill 87, which would proclaim March 29, the date in 1973 when the last U.S. ground forces withdrew from South Vietnam, as Vietnam Veterans Day. A Navy veteran came to the senator with the idea, so Wagoner was surprised that it has become a contentious issue.

A couple of years ago, a Vietnam veteran from Tennessee started the effort to designate March 29 in his home state, and now legislation has been passed in more than two dozen states. It's intended to be a belated tribute to Vietnam veterans -- the warm treatment many didn't get when they returned home to a nation bitterly divided by the war.

U.S. Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., has been working since 2003 to pass a bill in Congress to designate March 30 as the national Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day. It passed the U.S. House in March.

But here in Ohio, both the service director for the Ohio American Legion, Donald Lanthorn, and Bernie Pontones from the Vietnam Veterans of Ohio testified Tuesday to the Senate that a day specifically honoring Vietnam veterans is unnecessary. Veterans Day works just fine, thanks, Lanthorn said.

True, it's an unusual occasion to mark. V-J Day and V-E Day commemorate victories. Any day that commemorates pulling out of Vietnam underlines the fact that this was not a win.

Although March 29 is not the anniversary of the day people fled in helicopters from the rooftop of the American Embassy in Saigon -- the fall of Saigon was April 29-30, 1975 -- that's the memory it summons.

In fact, as Lanthorn points out, March 29 has other unpleasant associations as the day in 1971 that Lt. William Calley Jr. was convicted in the My Lai massacre of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians .

It also is the day in 1976 on which eight Ohio National Guardsmen were indicted for fatally shooting four Kent State University students during a 1970 war protest.

But perhaps the public needs this day as an act of contrition just as much as the veterans deserve to be honored.

In 2008, Minnesota became the sixth state to designate a Vietnam Veterans Day. The effort there was driven by Minnesota resident Diane Finnemann, whose brother served in Vietnam and returned home with injuries in 1968.

At first, his sister said, he was proud of his service, but people he encountered taunted him, calling him "baby killer." He began to isolate himself and to have nightmares. He couldn't keep a job. Before he could get the mental-health help he needed at the local veterans hospital, he committed suicide.

Finnemann saw this commemoration as vindication for what he suffered.

Part of the value of designating the day, besides recognizing the bravery and sacrifice of Vietnam veterans, might be in recognizing that most Americans have learned in the decades since to distinguish the war from the warrior. The people doing the fighting are not the ones who call the shots. Many don't choose the cause they are sent to fight for. The day could be a promise to those who serve in the military that they never will be treated that way again.