The Gary Sinise Foundation’s Lt. Dan Band plays The Villages, Fla., on Oct. 27, 2019. The Lt. Dan Band will take the stage at DAR Constitution Hall on Friday, May 26, 2023, for a “Welcome Home” concert to honor Vietnam veterans.  (Julia Robinson/The Gary Sinise Foundation)

Actor and musician Gary Sinise remembers how Vietnam veterans were welcomed home from the war “all too well.”

Fifty years ago, U.S. combat operations ended in the Asian country. Sinise, who had just graduated from high school, missed being drafted, but many of his friends and family members were Vietnam veterans.

“Our nation had turned its back on them, and it was a very, very difficult time,” Sinise said recently from his home in Los Angeles. “I learned a lot from my wife’s two brothers and her sister’s husband — all served in the Army, they were all Vietnam veterans. I learned quite a bit, and then just a short time later I started supporting Vietnam veterans back in the early ’80s in the Chicago area. And that really began a lot of veterans support work for me.”

This year’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War has special meaning for Sinise, whose best-known role might still be as Army Lt. Dan Taylor, a platoon leader who loses his legs fighting in Vietnam in 1994’s “Forrest Gump.” His appropriately named Lt. Dan Band will take the stage at DAR Constitution Hall on Friday, May 26, for a “Welcome Home” concert to honor Vietnam veterans.

The free concert is put on by The Gary Sinise Foundation, which since 2011 has furthered the actor’s mission to help service members and their families with concerts, events for Gold Star families and children, custom-built homes for injured veterans and more. Tickets are available at https://www.garysinisefoundation.org/WelcomeHome.

Vocalist Jeff Vezain, left, and Gary Sinise perform with The Lt. Dan Band at Sunbelt Rentals in Washington, D.C., Jan. 31, 2018. (Nick Wass/The Gary Sinise Foundation)

Fellow actor Joe Mantegna will serve as master of ceremonies; he and Sinise have presented the annual National Memorial Day Concert on the west lawn of the Capitol since 2007. That concert, featuring performances from the National Symphony Orchestra, the U.S. Army Chorus, the U.S. Navy Band Sea Chanters and other military ensembles, returns May 28, making for a busy weekend for Sinise.

“We just want to give them the welcome home they didn’t get, but that they so deserve, and to remind them that their service mattered and that we care for them very much,” Sinise said.

Medal of Honor recipient, Vietnam veteran and retired Army Sgt. 1st Class Sammy Davis will speak to the crowd before the show. Sinise met Davis in Seattle in 2007, when Sinise was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor Society’s Bob Hope Award for Excellence in Entertainment.

Davis, who received the Medal of Honor in 1968 after risking his life to rescue three wounded service members in Vietnam, according to his citation, inspired many of the Vietnam War scenes in “Forrest Gump.” He also starred in “Forrest Gump,” although many might not recognize him. Footage in the film showing the title character, played by Tom Hanks, receiving the Medal of Honor from President Lyndon B. Johnson was actually of Davis receiving his medal.

“They took Sammy’s head off and put Tom Hanks’ head on Sammy’s body and used the footage,” Sinise said. “… When I first met Sammy, and it goes back quite a number of years, he said, ‘Hey, I’m the real Forrest Gump!’ And we became very, very good friends; he’s done a lot of events with me and helped support my foundation.”

Since “Forrest Gump,” Sinise has gone on to become a staple in film and television, with starring roles in “Apollo 13,” “CSI: NY,” “Mission to Mars,” “13 Reasons Why” and more. But when he formed The Lt. Dan Band in 2003, he didn’t have as much name recognition.

“Lt. Dan has played a big role in my life, a role that I never would have suspected way back when, when the movie came out,” he said. “But who knew that we’d be attacked on Sept. 11 and we’d have so many … real-life Lt. Dans coming back from war. I just wanted to help them out. So I started visiting them and they started recognizing me. I’d walk into a room, and they wouldn’t know my name, but they knew Lt. Dan.”

The 13-piece band, which covers rock ’n’ roll and country hits “from Adele to Stevie Wonder to Bruno Mars,” as The Gary Sinise Foundation’s website boasts, has since performed at military installations stateside and around the world, including Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Japan, Okinawa and South Korea.

“The band never played in Iraq; I’ve been to Iraq, oh, five times over the years during the conflict and everything,” Sinise said. “But I did take the band to Afghanistan in 2009 and that was pretty cool. We were in Kandahar, and in Kandahar on the base there they had built something, it was like a boardwalk. It was this big, circled area, and on the boardwalk you had, oh, like Tim Hortons food and a Subway and some different fast food shops. … And we played right there on the boardwalk in Kandahar.”

Sinise sees parallels among veterans from Vietnam and the Afghanistan War, which concluded in August 2021 with the chaotic evacuation of allies and U.S. citizens from the country. A new play, “Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret,” written by retired Green Beret and Army Lt. Col. Scott Mann about his experiences in Afghanistan, will hit the road next month through October for a five-city tour presented by The Gary Sinise Foundation.

“It really is speaking to the experience of the Afghanistan veteran and what they’re going through, the Gold Star families that are struggling with losing a loved one there, and then turning the country back over to the Taliban after 20 years of sacrifice,” Sinise said. “It’s very challenging, and it’s very similar to what happened to our Vietnam veterans when we pulled out of Vietnam after many years of sacrifice. Over 58,000 killed in action, many more wounded, and then the communists take over shortly after we pull out. This was different because the Taliban took over as we were pulling out. So, very difficult for the soldiers and service members who served there.

“I just have a message for all those people who served in Afghanistan,” Sinise continued. “Your service mattered. It made a difference to people there. It kept the terrorists from plotting and planning more attacks from the mountains and caves of Afghanistan. And I salute them and celebrate them.”

The Lt. Dan Band performs at Sunbelt Rentals in Washington, D.C., Jan. 31, 2018. (Nick Wass/The Gary Sinise Foundation)