Nancy Coleman, in red, reads the names of Colquitt Countians who died in the Vietnam War as other members of the John Benning Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution place flags in their memory beside the Colquitt County Veterans Memorial Friday.

MOULTRIE, Ga. — About two dozen people came out to salute veterans of the Vietnam War during a ceremony Friday morning in downtown Moultrie.

Sponsored by the John Benning chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the event was part of an ongoing commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the war.

An operation Jan. 12, 1962, marked the first American combat mission in Vietnam when American helicopters delivered South Vietnamese troops into a battle. The last American troops left the country in March 1973, making the 11-year war the longest in American history until the war in Afghanistan surpassed it in 2013.

As part of Friday’s ceremony, local veterans were invited to place a push-pin on a map of South Vietnam to mark where they were deployed. Nine pins were placed, from one end of the country to the other. Warren Taylor placed one for himself in the A Shau Valley, where he flew helicopters, and another for his late brother, Erle Taylor Jr., who served with the 1st Air Cavalry. Other veterans served in the Army, Air Force and Marines.

Nancy Coleman, regent of the DAR chapter, said more than 3 million Americans served in Vietnam and the surrounding countries, and there are 6.4 million living today who served either in the war zone or elsewhere during that period.

“We make no distinction between veterans who served in-country, in-theater or elsewhere,” Coleman told the assembly.

Names of the Colquitt County residents who died in the war were read, and members of the DAR placed small American flags in their honor beside the Veterans Memorial on the Courthouse Square. The memorial contains the names of county residents who died in the country’s wars since World War I; 32 are from the Vietnam War.

After the small flags were placed, the assembly moved north to the Courthouse’s flagpole, where Coleman and two of the veterans raised the Vietnam Veterans Commemoration flag beneath the national and state flags.

Susan Turner, chair of the DAR’s Service to Veterans committee, led the assembly in The American’s Creed, and Gidge Taylor, the DAR historian, led a prayer to conclude the program.