Reflections off Granit..

IN MEMORY
OF THE MEN AND WOMEN
WHO SERVED IN THE VIETNAM WAR
AND LATER DIED AS A RESULT
OF THEIR SERVICE

WE HONOR AND REMEMBER
THEIR SACRIFICE

Honoring the ‘Hidden Casualties of Vietnam’

      Nearly every Vietnam Veteran knows another who lost his or her life after the wardue to their service in the war.

    Far too few visitors to the most-visited memorial in the nation's capitol are aware of the fact that still many Americans lose their lives after the war,..

       because      of it.

        A void that continues to deepen as more veterans are claimed each passing year.

    James, Harvey, Lovell, John, Jimmy, Elmo, Lewis, Michael, Gary, Robert,
Keith, Scotty, Stephen, William, Gerald, Richard, George, Charles,
Kenneth, Frank, Martin, Wayne, Franklin, Daniel, Larry, Ernest, Samuel,
Willis, Mike, Austin, Joseph, Karl, Lance, "Chap, " Carl, David...

    ...their names here are only a sampling of the lost, submitted by relatives as a visual testament on the web site of the grass-roots Vietnam War In Memory Memorial Plaque Project. Organized by family members and friends in 1996 to advocate the addition to recognize these veterans.

    The long road to Congress started in 1992 when Ruth Coder Fitzgerald, of Fredericksburg, Virginia lost her brother, John Keath Coder of Des Moines, Iowa, a former Air Force helicopter pilot, to non-Hodgkins lymphoma officially attributed to his exposure to Agent Orange.

    Like many, Ruth tried unsuccessfully to get John's name added to the Wall. On Memorial Day 1993, she and several other relatives of veterans whose post-war deaths were due to their service participated in the first In Memory ceremony.

   It was held, on a knoll overlooking the Wall, by the Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (a volunteer auxiliary group she had learned about during her efforts). After reading names aloud, the small group carried their veterans'' commemorative certificates and mementos to the Wall, where the National Park Service would collect them to be archived along with other items left daily by visitors to the memorial.
    After the first ceremony, she maintained contact with some of the participants, some of whom agreed that while the ceremony was important, year-round recognition was necessary to commemorate their veterans and others whose names could not be engraved on the wall but whose, as the certificate noted, "spirits are ever-present."

    They formed the Vietnam War In Memory Memorial, Inc., with an advisory board including retired Adm. Elmo Zumwalt Jr. (who ordered the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam and eventually lost his son Lewis III to non Hodgkins lymphoma caused by it), and Linda Todd Puller (who lost her husband, Pulitzer prize winning autobiographer Lewis, who was grievously wounded in Vietnam and suffering from the effects of PTSD,
to suicide).

~THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL~

"Survivor???"

In Washington D.C. On a low grassy hill carved on a long sloping wall made of shiny black granite are the names of 59,000 plus men and eight women. This is the official list of the dead from the Vietnam War. But, there is another side of this wall also containing a list of an equal number of names steadily growing of those men and women who are also victims of the Vietnam War. They died away from the field of battle so they are not as noticeable. Sometimes their deaths were Self inflicted, ending years of inner torment. Sometimes they succumbed to various diseases, Caused by origins, known, but not admitted. Sometimes death was at the end of a needle, trying to ease the pain in their minds. But no matter how they died, they were also KIAs. Victims of the war fought on the battlefields of the VA hospitals and the halls of Congress. And the list will continue to grow on the other side of the wall until those of us still living can win the war of the peace.

The project would be costly however.  Even a small project on the National Mall requires extraordinary planning and execution. UpDate! “ In memory of American Veterans    whose postwar deaths are attributed     to their Vietnam War service.'' Vietnam War In Memory Memorial Plaque Unveiled July 8, 2004 The American Battle Monuments Commission has removed donor information from its website and posted this message: We wish to thank those who made generous contributions to make this project a success ... No more contributions to the ABMC-VVM Plaque fund are being requested or accepted from private donors. Contributions received in excess of the immediate project needs have been set aside for future maintenance, according to ABMC staff member, Mr. Michael Norbury, who may be reached via email at NorburyM@abmc.gov.   Since 2000, when Congress passed Public Law 106-214 authorizing the plaque, the  Vietnam War In Memory Memorial, Inc. has encouraged contributions to the American Battle Monuments Commission's plaque fund. We now gratefully join them in thanking all of you who helped to establish this new element of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. We look forward to greeting as many more of you as possible at 7 p.m. November 10, for the dedication to be conducted by Vietnam Veterans of America. Engraved in Optima, the same typeface used on the Wall, the 2x3 gray granite In Memory Memorial Plaque is set cathedral-style into an extension of the plaza where the Three Servicemen statue stands, with views toward The Wall and the Women's Memorial.   Thursday, July 8, 2004 -- Agent Orange Quilts figured in the unveiling ceremony held July 8 by the American Battle Monuments Commission. Vietnam War In Memory Memorial Plaque Unveiling Photos Online The American Battle Monuments Commission formally unveiled the new Vietnam War In Memory Memorial Plaque July 8 2004 at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. The gray granite plaque added to the plaza near the Three Servicemen statue is inscribed to acknowledge and commemorate the countless veterans dying postwar of service-related causes including (but not limited to) the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and Agent Orange but whose names cannot be added to the Wall. Many photos of the ceremony are available for viewing at: http://www.angelfire.com/oz/in_memory/

This resolution has been passed for "May 7 " in the states of

Pennsylvania.California, andNew Jersy.
We traveled to the state capital and were treated
like kings....But more States need Approval!

Eye`s of Glass~

A buddy's cries I heard today,
On hells battlefield in full array.
"Make it quick, oh God" he prayed,
"I don't want to live this hellish day".

My buddy's hand I held today.
Eyes of glass, he could not stay.
No beret or wings upon his chest
He just gave the world his best.

Two hundred strong, in battle today
But only ten walked away.
Soaked in blood and screams of pain
We had fought with nothing to gain.

The battle closed in, bayonets drawn
Comrades left one by one.
One hundred ninety left today
Eyes of glass. They would not stay. 

The dead lie round, the wounded cry
"Mommy, mommy, God don't let me die!"
A bayonets cut, I felt today
On hells battlefield in full array.

Written in blood of stories untold
Heroic scenes of soldiers bold.
Doctors and nurses with heavy hearts
Comfort gave when comrades depart.

Unselfishly they gave of blood and tears
To help our comrades shed their fears.
With hands held tight in prayer and song
We pray that we have not been wrong.

The wounds lie deep, the flesh will heal
The spirit's gone, no more to deal.
No freedom ring, no children sing
The machines of war 'tis all they bring.

A distant land, mother's weep
A child cries for one who sleeps
Rockets scream, no mother dreams
Children pray for those who've passed in full array.

Blood flows freely in our dreams
Wives are wakened by our screams.

The war is over, the test is done
"God, what more could we have done?"

We are gone, but this be sure
Never again to this endure
For in our dreams we live those days
That took all those in full array.

By: Larry Reynolds.

I was a Soldier:

 That's the way it is, that's what we were...are.
         We put it simply, without any swagger, without any brag, in those four plain words. We speak them softly, just to ourselves.

Others may have forgotten.   

They are a manifesto to mankind; speak those four words anywhere in the world -- yes, anywhere -- and many who hear will recognize their meaning.

They are a pledge. A pledge that stems from a document which said:
"I solemnly Swear", "to protect and defend"

and goes on from there, and   from a Flag called

"Old Glory".

Listen, and you can hear the voices echoing through them, words that sprang white-hot from bloody lips, shouts of "medic", whispers of "Oh God!", forceful words of "Follow Me". If you can’t hear them, you weren’t, if you can you were.

"Don't give up the ship! Fight her till she dies...

Damn the torpedoes!
Go ahead! . . . Do you want to live forever? . . .

Don't cheer, boys;
the poor devils are dying."

Laughing words from Willie & Joe, and words cold as January ice, words that when spoken, were meant, ..

"Wait till you see the whites of their eyes".

The echo's of I was a Soldier.
You can hear the slow cadences at Gettysburg,

or Arlington honoring not a man, but a Soldier, perhaps forgotten by his nation... 

                              Oh! Those Broken Promises.

You can hear those echoes as you have a beer at the

"Post", walk in a parade, go to The Wall, visit a VA hospital, hear the mournful sounds of taps,

or gaze upon the white crosses, row upon row.
              But they aren't just words; they're a way of life,

a pattern of living,...or a way of dying.
They made the evening, with another day's work done;

supper with the wife and kids; and no Gestapo snooping at the door and threatening to kick your teeth in.

They gave you the right to choose who shall run our government for us, the right to a secret vote that counts

just as much as the next
fellow's in the final tally; and the obligation to use that right, and guard it and keep it clean.

They prove the right to hope, to dream, to pray; the obligation to
serve. These are some of the meanings of those four words,

(meanings we don't often stop to tally up or even list).

Only in the stillness of a moonless night, or in the quiet of a
Sunday afternoon, or in the thin dawn of a new day, when our world is close about us, do they rise up in our memories and stir in our sentient hearts.

And we are remembering Wake Island, and Bataan, Inchon, and Chu Lai, Knox and Benning, Great Lakes and Paris Island, Travis and Chanute, and many other places long forgotten by our civilian friends.

          They're plain words, those four. Simple words.

You could grave them on stone; you could carve them on the mountain ranges.You could sing them, to the tune of "Yankee Doodle."
But you needn't. You needn't do any of those things, for those words are graven in the hearts of Veterans, they are familiar to 24,000,000 tongues, every sound and every syllable. If you must write them, put them on my Stone.

But when you speak them, speak them softly, proudly,

              I will hear you,           
                                 for   too,    Mr. Geer...

                                                 was a Soldier.

Colonel Daniel K. Cedusky
          Jun 5, 2003

Our Memorial BunKer`s

more of The Herd in Iraq ~