The Slice: The rest of the Spokane sign story

You might have seen that 1969 photo of the soldier from Spokane standing by the “Entering SPOKANE” road sign in Vietnam.

It appeared on both the front page and the Today section of Sunday’s newspaper.

The soldier in question told me he had no idea how that sign got over there.

But Monday morning I spoke with Mead’s Steve Melville, who served two tours of duty in Vietnam. He knew the answer.

“It was sent to me,” he said.

Melville, 70, a 1965 Rogers High School graduate, found himself in the war zone in a unit with a few other Spokane guys. That gave him an idea.

So he wrote home to his sister, suggesting she appropriate a Spokane road sign. He had a specific one in mind, on Upriver Driver.

His sister, Kay Howard, picks up the story.

“I wasn’t going to steal one,” she said, laughing.

But she didn’t want to disappoint her brother. So she approached the city about buying such a sign. The guys at the sign shop said they did not sell them. So she showed them the letter from her brother. They said they would get back to her.

And they did. Kay went back to the sign shop and was presented with an “Entering SPOKANE” sign, wrapped and addressed to her brother in Vietnam. No charge.

She mailed it to Steve. And in early 1968, he placed it on his bunker. He sent a photo of it to either the S-R or the Chronicle and, as he recalls. it ran in the paper sometime in the first half of that year, not long after the Tet Offensive.

After adorning his bunker for a time, Steve affixed the sign to his unit’s big supply truck.

At some point, the sign disappeared. “I have no idea what happened to it.”

So imagine his surprise upon seeing it on the front page of the newspaper Sunday in a photo taken in 1969, well after he had come home from Vietnam.

“Good to know it was continuing to serve.”

He had been out of town over the weekend, but his sister left him a message directing him to check out the front page of the newspaper.

He did and his jaw dropped. There was the “Entering SPOKANE” sign, thought to be missing in action.

After his military service, Steve worked for Centennial Mills for 30 years and then another 10 for the U.S. Postal Service. He’s retired now but stays busy as the liaison between Colbert Presbyterian Church and area food banks.

And that “Entering SPOKANE” sign? Presumably, it’s still in country.

It’s not the only sign Steve remembers.

When he first came home from Vietnam, he saw the reader board outside a Spokane fast-food restaurant where he had worked before joining the service. It had a message that was just for him.

“WELCOME HOME STEVE MELVILLE.”

Whoever at the restaurant thought of doing that all those years ago probably forgot about the gesture in time.

But Steve Melville hasn’t, and he never will.

Today’s Slice question: How many Inland Northwest Vietnam veterans have gone back to visit that country in recent years?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. When the eggs came from the hens next door, you can consider yourself to be eating local.