Ceremony recognizes vets not eligible for Vietnam Wall

Air Force Retiree News Service (email) ^ | 13 April 2009 | AFRNS

[Racehorse]

WASHINGTON (AFRNS) -- One-hundred twenty-three American heroes from the Vietnam War era will be honored posthumously this month during the annual In Memory Day ceremony, according to Jan C. Scruggs, founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.

In Memory Day was created to pay tribute to those who died prematurely from noncombat injuries and emotional suffering caused directly by the Vietnam War, but who are not eligible to have their names inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

A list of the honorees and their hometowns is available at www.vvmf.org/index.cfm?SectionID=774.

The 11th annual In Memory Day ceremony begins at 10 a.m. April 20 at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial here. Nearly 1,000 family members, friends and fellow veterans are expected to visit the nation's capital to participate in this year's event.

"In Memory Day allows The Wall to do what it does best: provide a healing environment for family members and friends," Mr. Scruggs said. "It also allows all of us to pay tribute to these brave Americans who served and sacrificed for their country."

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial bears the names of 58,260 men and women who died while serving in the U.S. armed forces in the Vietnam War.

"The Department of Defense developed specific parameters that allow only the names of servicemembers who died of wounds suffered in combat zones to be added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial," Mr. Scruggs said. "The In Memory program recognizes those men and women who have died prematurely as a result of the Vietnam War, but who do not meet the criteria. Many of their deaths are a result of Agent Orange exposure and emotional wounds that never healed."

During the ceremony, family members will read aloud their loved ones' names in chronological order by date of death. Following the ceremony, participants will lay tributes at the base of The Wall corresponding to the honorees' dates of service in Vietnam. With the addition of this year's honorees, more than 1,800 people have been honored in the In Memory Honor Roll.

Established in 1979, the nonprofit Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund was authorized by Congress to build the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Since then, the memorial fund has evolved into an international nongovernmental organization dedicated to preserving the legacy of The Wall, promoting healing and educating about the impact of the Vietnam War.

Its initiatives include educational programs, a traveling Wall replica that honors veterans and a humanitarian and land mine-removal program in Vietnam. The fund also is building The Education Center at The Wall, an underground educational facility near the memorial. (Courtesy of American Forces Press Service)

[muawiyah]

We also don't honor those who enlisted or were drafted but passed on due to injury or illness during Basic Training, AIT or other school preparatory to assignment in the Vietnam theatre.

[alexander_busek]

We also don't honor those who enlisted or were drafted but passed on due to injury or illness during Basic Training, AIT or other school preparatory to assignment in the Vietnam theatre.

I propose that we establish a separate memorial in which the names would be inscribed of all those who died (of natural causes, traffic accidents, etc.) between receiving their draft notifications in the mail and their actually reporting for induction.

Regards,

[Albion Wilde]

I went to one of these ceremonies a few years ago. It was very meaningful for the families and provided both honor and closure for many individuals. As part of the event, families gathered in a large circle near the wall and spoke the name of their loved one and the reason for his combat-related death. About 85% had died of Agent Orange-related cancers; most of the other 15% had taken their own lives. At least according to my observation of the survivors, being able to see how many others had been similarly affected helped ease the sense of shame felt by some of the loved ones of men who had committed suicide.

Sadly, PTSD treatment is still lagging behind amputation and other types of wound injury.

"I am under a lot of pressure to not diagnose PTSD" [Army medical treatment thread]

[muawiyah]

Good idea.

[ansel12]

All this sounds like politics to me and his labeling them heroes makes me want to ask him to define hero.

[Publius6961]

We also don't honor those who enlisted or were drafted but passed on due to injury or illness during Basic Training, AIT or other school preparatory to assignment in the Vietnam theatre.

What's next?
Honoring those who fled to Canada and died of drug overdoses?

Give me a break.
There's a reason why it's called the VIETNAM VETS MEMORIAL!

[muawiyah]

What the hell do draftdodgers who went to Canada have to do with the faithful performance of duty?

I think you got a screw loose buddy!

[Racehorse]

All this sounds like politics to me and his labeling them heroes makes me want to ask him to define hero.

So . . . ask.

vvmf@vvmf.org

Or, you can stand fast and be silly like several posters to this thread. Guess lurkers ultimately decide which posters are the silly ones.

R.

[Racehorse]

Muawiyah,

The way you wrote your reply, right or wrong in the way I read it, you opened the door. That guy just accepted your invitation to step over the threshold.

Best,
R.

[ansel12]

I didn’t get what you were trying to say will you try it again.

[Bob Buchholz]

How about my brother?

Shot nine times, three in the face, three in the left arm, three in the left lung while carrying a fallen marine back to the helicopter when he was 18. Got a silver star and a purple heart but died when he was 34 from soft sarcoma cancer (before agent orange was officially recognized as a cause).

I think he should be on the wall, but until now I never knew that there was anything at all that could be done.

[ansel12]

I don’t know, your brother isn’t even on this list and he was a decorated hero but this famous liberal activist is. She inspired the TV show China Beach.

(Washington, D.C) - Lynda Van Devanter, one of the nation’s foremost women’s veterans advocates, died November 15, at her home in Herndon, Virginia, after a long illness. “This is an extremely sad occasion,” said Thomas H. Corey, national president of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA). “Lynda was a giant in the field of veterans affairs. She was a forceful and effective advocate for all veterans. She was a valued friend, a devoted colleague, an accomplished nurse, and a loving mother and wife. She will be missed terribly.”

“Lynda Van Devanter, who was born in 1947, served as a U.S. Army nurse at the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku from 1969-70. In 1979, a year after the founding of Vietnam Veterans of America, she helped launch and became the head of VVA’s Women’s Project. She also began counseling other Vietnam veterans and conducting seminars around the country.

In 1983, she wrote a highly acclaimed memoir, Home Before Morning, which was reissued in 2002. “

From one of her articles:
“When will we learn the lessons of past wars? When will we stop taking the seed of our lives, our children, and sending them to destruction? When will we realize that war does nothing but perpetuate war - that violence begets only violence? I ask our President and the leaders of the world community, can we not find some way of living together in peace and harmony? Can we not stop what seems to be carrying us inexorably toward another war - and possible nuclear destruction?”

[Racehorse]

About 85% had died of Agent Orange-related cancers; most of the other 15% had taken their own lives. At least according to my observation of the survivors, being able to see how many others had been similarly affected helped ease the sense of shame felt by some of the loved ones of men who had committed suicide.

If I don't die of old age first, I may die eventually from friendly fire.

The deep freezers at Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland AFB in San Antonio vouch-safe a ten year supply of my stem cells against the day my cancer might return.

This particular cancer and the dates I served in-country automatically, simply upon my application and without much question, qualify me for the Agent Orange compensation for which I never made a claim and will not likely ever make a claim. (Partly because I am fearful any such claim will be subtracted from my military retirement.)

Not everyone who served during the Vietnam era served in Vietnam nor were "DIRECTLY" wounded in any way by "DIRECT" connection with in-country service.

At the end of my first active duty tour at a de-activated station in Houston, I was the only person to be given orders for Vietnam. My closest friend was dispatched to Florida, then to Taiwan, then afterwards sent home to Oklahoma City for honorable discharge.

Considering the times, that close friend was most certainly a hero.

Best, R.

[ansel12]

At the end of my first active duty tour at a de-activated station in Houston, I was the only person to be given orders for Vietnam. My closest friend was dispatched to Florida, then to Taiwan, then afterwards sent home to Oklahoma City for honorable discharge. Considering the times, that close friend was most certainly a hero.

I don't understand, What did your friend do that was heroic?

[Racehorse]

I don't understand, What did your friend do that was heroic?

I think maybe you are right. You don't understand. You've at least twice tried to trivialize posts by playing or not playing . . . dumb.

What we might need here is a common frame of reference which you need to provide for me, if you might be pleased to do so.

How do you define "hero" and something "heroic"?

Thanks and best with a wink, R.

[ansel12]

No, I don’t understand your posts.

Was your friend a hero because he served or did he serve in Vietnam or was it because he did something in Taiwan?

Just flesh it out a little more so that I can get some idea of what you meant.

[Racehorse]

LOL!

Answer my appeal for creating a common frame of reference, then we’ll have something to talk about.

Wink,
R.

[ansel12]

You described your friend as a hero I didn’t, that means you need to define it.

Just give me a clue, when you described him were you saying that he served in the army and never went to Vietnam but because he served during the war he was a hero?

[Racehorse]

Why are you hesitant and so timid to answer two simple questions which might establish the common frame of reference I want?

How do you define, “hero?”

What do you define as ‘heroic?”

Answer the questions to my easily satisfied satisfaction and I will most certainly answer, maybe not to your satisfaction, why my friend who never served any closer than Taiwan was and remains a hero, IMHO.

Wink,
R.

[ansel12]

Why don’t you get off your high horse and tell us what you found “heroic” in your friend.

I don’t understand why you are being so cryptic and sensitive, I’m only asking for a little clarification about your friends military service.

[Racehorse]

I know that sitting on a high horse is a good place to sit.

A high horse upon which I’ve always wanted to sit and never have is riding on the back of a Mountain Horse.

You keep replying to my posts and deflect and avoid answering the question which needs to be answered to get the answer to questions you ask.

How does ansel12 define a “Hero?”

What does ansel12 recognize as something, “Heroic?”

After all this wasted time, once you tell us your answers to these two simple questions, I have no doubt my answer will be both complete and a let-down, since I believe I know the answers definitively to both questions.

Wink,
R.

[ansel12]

You are a weird guy and you have a weird thread going here, you posted to me originally and I asked you for clarification and you went testy on me (and would not clarify the post), then I asked you for just the slightest clarification about a friend that you labelled hero and you clammed up about him.

Weird way to run your own thread.

[Racehorse]

Yes. I am a weird guy.

But . . . all I asked was that we . . . you and I . . . create a common frame of reference. To deflect doing so . . . to evade doing so . . . you puff up this fiction.

To get the answers to your questions, all you need to do, repeated again for everyone YET AGAIN to read, is for you to answer two questions:

How does ansel12 define a “hero?”

What for ansel12 defines the “heroic?”

Jiminy Cricket, you’re the one running this thread. Not me.

Stop posting and there is no thread.

Post your answers to the question, establish a frame of reference, and for at least a little while, we have maybe the beginnings of a discussion.

Wink, R.

[ansel12]

You posted the article about non combat “heroes” and then you labelled your friend as a “hero” just tell us why you call your friend hero.

[Racehorse]

To put things correctly, as opposed to your revision: I posted an article relayed by the Air Force Retiree News Service by email.

After you and two others made light of the veterans their familes, or my perception that that is what the three of you did, I posted something which included admiration for my fellow veteran friend who never served in Vietnam.

I called him a hero, and to my mind he was and remains so.

I asked you two simple questions which you have evaded, deflected and apparently won't answer so as to create a common frame of reference within which we might talk.

So . . . ansel12 . . . yawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn.

Won't you Pony up?My heros have always been Cowboys.

[ansel12]

Then I too am your hero, thank you.

[Racehorse]

I don’t think you’re a cowboy.

A cowboy would have answered the two questions so I might tell him straight what he wanted to know.

Wink,
R.

[ansel12]

I’m a Texan that enlisted into the army in my home town of Houston, Texas, after being given a permanent deferment from the draft.

So, as best as I can tell from this bizarre thread I am a hero.

[mad_as_he$$]

I know 9 names that should be on the Wall but aren't. They weren't in the Military. They died honorably, weapons in hand defending a place that is not on any map.

[Rameumptom]

The best book on military PTSD I have read is Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's book "On Killing". He addresses Viet Nam in particular and also discusses the psychology of war and killing. He has a newer book "On Combat" which explains much of the body's emotional and physiological responses to combat. Its a good read for any law enforcment officer too.

About 5 years ago I lent my copy of On Killing to friend of mine, an ex-Navy Seal who hadn't gone swimming once since he was in Viet Nam. The book made him shake and he got pissed at me at first since in his words "it was too close". I got worried that I had tread on sacred ground (which I had). I served but was never in combat so was pretty naive in a way lending him the book. But he did share with me a story about a knife encounter, (Grossman adresses the larger psychological burden of personal close kills in contrast to further distant kills like fighter bombers). His wife later told me he did a perfect dive into the lake swam out 50 yards and back. He's not totally out of the woods but I like to think Grossman's book helped him.

[Rameumptom]

Clarification..

I served (between Iraq I and II) but was never in combat.

[Albion Wilde]

God bless you and heal you completely, Racehorse, in the Name Above All Names. There are no words to thank you for your service; but know that so many of us know and remember.

[Albion Wilde]

The best book on military PTSD I have read is Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's book "On Killing". He addresses Viet Nam in particular and also discusses the psychology of war and killing. He has a newer book "On Combat" which explains much of the body's emotional and physiological responses to combat....>

Thank you for the insightful suggestion. Pinging some FRiends interested in PTSD. I saw some extraordinary responses in my veteran friends and relatives after Vietnam, for which they received no treatment at that time. One friend, a West Point grad and an officer who has two Purple Hearts, got a doctorate and also became an attorney within 3 years after his second combat tour; then got a high-powered consulting job. One day he was walking on a downtown street in a business suit when a car backfired, sounding like gunfire. He grabbed a passing businesswoman and threw her and himself to the sidewalk behind a car for cover, ripping her stockings. Naturally, others in the business community were on the street, gawking. He was so profoundly embarrassed. Luckily, she didn't sue.*

* (Personally, I would have fallen in love with him.)

[Racehorse]

Note that none of your friends identified themselves as contributors to this thread.

[Albion Wilde]

Note that none of your friends identified themselves as contributors to this thread.

Most of them post only rarely and some never post; but all of them have showed up at a recovery facility at Walter Reed almost every Friday for the past four years to volunteer, where they speak to each other in person. So please don't take it as a sign that they are not interested in the topic; I assure you they and many other FReepers who work with them are very hands-on with supporting wounded veterans.

[Racehorse]

I stand . . . duly corrected.

Thanks,
R.

[Albion Wilde]

I had in mind reassurance, not correction! Have a blessed day!

[Racehorse]

Ah . . .

So . . .

About reassurance, I am clueless.

Outside a small, tiny circle of acquaintances, there are few who can tell me nor share with me what reassurance looks and feels like. I truly don't know. Sorry.

That circle looks and feels nothing like the envious stuff you wrote about:

"Most of them post only rarely and some never post; but all of them have showed up at a recovery facility at Walter Reed almost every Friday for the past four years to volunteer, where they speak to each other in person. So please don't take it as a sign that they are not interested in the topic; I assure you they and many other FReepers who work with them are very hands-on with supporting wounded veterans."

Sorry to cause confusion, if I did.

Maybe. Considering my post and your reply . . . and my subsequent "self-corrective" reply really is . . . I thought . . . reassurance.

If not . . . I remain . . . clueless outside the small waiting room crowd of veteran and dependent patients I shoulder up with every six months of so.

[Racehorse]

For what it is worth, or not.

Self-medication:

Toss The Feathers

[oldenuff2no]

I think I have the qualifications to speak on this issue. I am a combat vet. The casualties of that war were many and not all of them died then and there. The wall honors those who did die there. That is the qualifier that gets their names on the black stone for eternity. I do not believe that it takes anything away from the others who suffered greatly.
We honor those who are on that wall but nothing prohibits anyone from honoring others who passed because of some connection to Viet Nam.
I have too many friends who are remembered on that wall. I have guilt, pride, pain, sadness, and great memories attached to those honored souls.
This is not a simple question but there is a simple qualifier to be included in this legacy.
Let them rest in the honor they deserve.
If you choose to honor others please do. I will help if I can but let those black stone walls exist in peace without drama or contention.
Many of us carry the scars of that time both emotional and physical. I had the good fortune to live past that place and I can not tell you why. Many did not have that chance of live. Let it rest and find another way to honor these courageous people.

[Racehorse]

Thanks, oldenuff2no.

“We honor those who are on that wall but nothing prohibits anyone from honoring others who passed because of some connection to Viet Nam.”

“Let it rest and find another way to honor these courageous people.”

If those ‘other’ people were so courageous, why should they be honored differently?

Truly thankful to you and for your post.

Best,
R.

[steamroller]

I served in Vietnam during 1968-69.I survived Agent Orange related lymphoma 28 years ago,but later developed premature diabetes type 2 and the reultant complications will probably do me in.Should I be singled out for notice when I go?Absolutely not.The people on the wall lost their lives then and there,or in some cases later from wounds.
I have no problem with being remembered as a veteran who did what was needed,but I sure don’t belong in the company of those on the wall.
I managed to live a full life and raise a family.
They didn’t.