Posted on 05/07/2008 4:56:24 PM PDT by SandRat
WASHINGTON, May 7, 2008 – The names of four U.S. servicemembers were etched into the glossy black walls of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial this week alongside more than 58,000 of their fallen comrades.
Finishing the addition today was the name of Raymond C. Mason, a Marine lance corporal who died a year ago as a result of ailing health stemming from a bullet wound that paralyzed him in February 1968 during the Tet Offensive.
In a ceremony at the wall here, Mason’s widow, Priscilla Mason, watched as an engraver inched a sandblaster over the Marine’s stenciled name with surgeonlike precision.
Priscilla got on bended knee, held a sheet of paper up to the bright, new inscription, and rubbed a crayon in diagonal strokes until “RAYMOND C MASON” was embossed against the white paper. She said she plans to have the outline tattooed onto her skin, and she has promised to make dozens of rubbings for friends back home in Riverside, R.I., when she returns here on Memorial Day.
“This is wonderful. He’s finally home,” she said when asked how she felt upon seeing the finished product on Panel 41E, Line 64 of the memorial.
The names of Richard M. Goosens, a Marine lance corporal, and Dennis O. Hargrove and Darrell J. Naylor, both Army specialists fourth class, were inscribed here yesterday. The Defense Department determined that their deaths, which occurred years after the end of U.S. operations in Vietnam, resulted from wounds suffered in a combat zone there.
The wall’s 58,260 etched names bear testament to the ultimate sacrifice paid by those U.S. troops, said R. James Nicholson, former secretary of Veterans Affairs.
“It’s also a tangible expression of the gratitude of the American people for those who served and died there,” he said in an interview today. “The hope is that more and more Americans will learn and grow to appreciate the sacrifice and the price that was paid to perpetuate our freedom.”
Designed by architect Maya Lin and built in 1982, the memorial consists of two black walls sunken into the ground, with a rolling mound of earth behind it sloping toward a heavily trafficked street.
“It was Maya’s vision for the memorial that it appear as a rift in the earth,” said J.C. Cummings, architect of record for the memorial. “At the same time, the wall serves a practical purpose of separating the visitor from the noise and the traffic of Constitution Avenue and the noise of the city.”
As a result, the architecture creates a quiet and contemplative atmosphere, he said, a design that allows visitors to have a respectful experience.
Jan C. Scruggs, founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, said adding the names this week completes the healing process for surviving friends and family members. The additions also reflect America’s solidarity with its servicemembers of past and present, he said.
“When you join the service, you can feel comfortable that the service is going to stand behind you,” Scruggs said in an interview today. “Especially the people who are serving today in Iraq and Afghanistan in combat, they need to know that we’re behind them and we appreciate what they’re doing.”
I’m not sure that someone who lives for 40 years after combat is in the same category as someone killed in action.
Died of wounds received. Same thing. He was still killed by enemy action...
Perhaps, but I don't see any harm here, and I suppose it depends on how you "categorize" these things. Yes, if it's 400 next year, it has to be looked at, but I'm sure there's a medical history to back these four up.
You might recall a case a year or so ago, several threads, an individual who died as the result of a gunshot would 20 or 30 years earlier. The perp who was convicted, jailed, served his term for attempted murder was re-arrested and charged with murder. Intended consequences I guess.
The common law had a ‘year and a day’ rule - the death had to occur within a year and a day of the event for causation to be found. In my opinion, 40 years is just too long for ‘A’ to be the direct cause of ‘B’.
Tattooed?!
Paralysis can take a toll on the body and soul that is painful and slow. The veteran deserves to be memorialized with his comrads.
Raymond C. Mason, a Marine lance corporal who died a year ago as a result of ailing health stemming from a bullet wound that paralyzed him in February 1968 during the Tet Offensive.
One could put an arbitrary cutoff date for those who die as a result of wounds suffered during combat, but what should that be?
One year; one year and one day; 5 years, etc???
This hero suffered for years with paralysis as a result of wounds he received under combat conditions.
I also would imagine that the medical team who have worked with him over the years, thought he finally succumbed due to those exact same wounds.
I say he belongs on the wall.
Of course, being a Nam Vet, I am probably a little biased.
How about those who drank themselves to death in an attempt to drown their nightmares?
How about those who succumbed to drugs first experienced in Vietnam and continued to use in order to live in a parallel universe that didn't contain the horror and the deaths?
How about those who came home — couldn't drown the nightmares, or drug themselves into a parallel universe - and simply blew their brains out to escape their nightmares?
How about those who came home and found their wife and family had disappeared or run off with another man?
Then decided life was no longer worth living?
I could go on and on — describing what could be defined as Combat Action caused death..
One who hasn't experienced action could call it “indirectly”
caused by combat..
There is no such thing as “indirect” involving combat — it is a direct affront to any sane man's mind.
Some survive and some don't.
The demons can survive longer than some men can endure.
Are they any less a casualty of combat..
Of course not..
But — a case could be made that the wall was MEANT to represent the KIA.... KILLED IN ACTION..
Not those who died later as a result of “Action”...
It's a tough call.
Personally - I've known more than a few Marines who survived combat - but didn't survive the effect on their minds or souls for very long after returning home..
Several “died” in Vietnam - but didn't become a corpse until much later..
It's a very tough call... I wouldn't want the billet making that call.
Rumor has it, that the Wall contains the names of REMFs whose closest contact with action in Vietnam was in the whores houses of Saigon and their death was the result of a drunken accident on the way back to their air conditioned room on base...
If THEIR names are on the Wall - why not those who died decades later as a DIRECT result of combat experienced?
I’m with you Conservative Vermont Vet.
We stand with our brother’s who are finally at home and now on the wall with their other fallen hero’s. For all we know they were once medivaced by Vets_Husband. Perhaps I took care of them once.
Rest in peace brothers! All four of those whose injuries finally caused them to have their names placed upon the wall. That’s not something taken lightly. NO way!
For the rest of us, we can be buried in Arlington if we wish.
Even those of us with a 100 percent permanent disability from our service. (And still proud to have served.) I assure you, it hasn’t been a picnic. But both of us would gladly serve again, in a heartbeat.
There was good reason these men were added to the wall. Heroism, injuries in combat resulting in their deaths, in a Foreign country!
Leave them alone. Let them finally rest in peace.
You don’t put a time line on that. We can always make room for them, always. Even if we had to add another panel.
Some people just can’t see what the decent thing is to do sometimes. These men suffered for an immeasurable amount of time. Like torture...
Sandrat, That was my husband you were refering to. Just because that bullet did not kill him forty years ago, does not diminish the fact that it did hit him! His attitude every morning when he opened his eyes, was that he cheated death one more day. You would do well to remember the old saying, walk a mile in my shoes, before you judge me.
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