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thedrifter
02-12-03, 06:54 AM
Dear Desert Storm Mom:

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund in Washington, DC is looking for names to be honored with a special ceremony on April 21, 2003 at The Wall. Please email your members with this very important message. The deadline to get these names added to the list is February 27, 2003. God's speed to heal our nation.

Sincerely,
Debra J. Kraus krasu@msn.com
Gold Star Wife from Agent Orange

Alternative List Honors Vietnam Veterans

By CONNIE CASS
.c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Christopher Wilkinson held his wife's hand as he died of lung cancer in a Minnesota hospital room, 27 years and 8,000 miles away from the war in Vietnam.

Carl Auel flipped his car in a ditch along a Virginia backroad and died in a coma two weeks later, ending years of nightmares about Vietnam that pushed the retired Navy chaplain to drink.

Frank Nichols hanged himself in 1977, eight years after returning to Kentucky with a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.

Despite the years and distance, each man's family considers him a casualty of war. But none of their names appear on the black granite wall in Washington honoring the war's official dead. For these others, there is a little-known remembrance - a roll of names kept inside the park rangers' kiosk near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Few visitors see the list. There's no sign; some rangers don't even know it's there. But those who ask the right person are handed a slim, gray binder with 801 names and snapshots of shirtless young soldiers, middle-aged men in business suits, veterans posed somberly before the wall.

Family members will read those names on April 21, the 10th anniversary of what began as a grass-roots movement to publicly recognize deaths that might otherwise go overlooked.

``People see the wall and think that's all the casualties, but it's not. That war really isn't over,'' said Linda Wilkinson of Inver Grove Heights, Minn. She blames exposure to defoliants for her husband's death in 1998 at age 50.

The American Battle Monuments Commission is finishing plans for a granite marker to be installed near the wall as early as this year honoring, without naming, those ``who served in the Vietnam War and later died as a result of their service.''

Meanwhile, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, keeper of the wall and the list, is seeking more names from veterans' families for inclusion on the ``In Memory'' list.

Death certificates and military records must be submitted by Feb. 28 to qualify for this year's ceremony, said Holly Rotondi, who reviews the applications.

It's impossible to say to what degree wartime service should be blamed in deaths years later. If a family makes a reasonable case, the name is accepted, Rotondi said.

Fifty-four names were added last year, the first time the memorial fund publicized the search, Rotondi said. She hopes for more nominations as word spreads; no one knows how many thousands might be eligible.

Many on the list died from cancers the government presumes are related to Agent Orange, which was used to clear jungle growth that provided cover for the enemy. Others were victims of post-traumatic stress disorder, through suicide, drug abuse or alcoholism.

And there are civilians and soldiers who died during the war but don't meet Defense Department criteria as war casualties. Reflecting those rules, the wall of 58,229 names is reserved for service members who died of wounds sustained in the combat zone or in direct support of combat.

The ``In Memory'' list tells many other stories:

Johnny Bower of Costa Mesa, Calif., died in the April 1966 crash of a charter plane transporting soldiers to Fort Benning, Ga., for training before deployment to Vietnam.

Michael Murphy, a civilian from Seward, Alaska, was killed in a Viet Cong ambush in 1968, while working for the U.S. Agency of International Development. Civilians aren't included on the wall.

Elmo Zumwalt III, patrol boat commander and son of the well-known admiral who ordered spraying of Agent Orange along Vietnam waterways, died of lymphoma in August 1988. Zumwalt and his father blamed the cancer on Agent Orange in their joint memoir, ``My Father, My Son.''

Lewis B. Puller Jr. lost his legs to a land mine and wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning account of his long struggle with pain, addiction and despair. The son of legendary Lt. Gen. Lewis ``Chesty'' Puller, the most decorated solider in Marine Corps history, shot himself in the head in May 1994.

As for Wilkinson, his decision to enlist in the Army at age 19 caused a lifetime estrangement from his brother Alex, a war protester. They reconciled in the hospital two days before his death.

Auel, a Lutheran minister from Purcellville, Va., comforted scared and dying men in Vietnam. But he couldn't quell the flashbacks that began consuming his own mind two decades after the war. His drunken driving accident came in 1997, when he was 67.

``He helped so many people,'' said daughter Juliana Auel. ``By the time it got to him, he didn't have anything left for himself.''

On the Net:

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund: http://www.vvmf.org/

American Battle Monuments Commission, accepting donations for the ``In Memory'' plaque: http://www.abmc.gov

Vietnam Veterans Memorial: http://www.nps.gov/vive/index.htm



01/28/03 15:48 EST


Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.


--
Alan Greilsamer
Director of Communications
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund
1023 15th Street, Second Floor
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 393-0090 ext. 19 telephone
(202) 393-0029 fax
agreilsamer@vvmf.org



Sempers,

Roger