West Virginia XXII

 

My last few posts from Wild, Wonderful, West Virginia have focused on those from Morgantown High School, so I decided to try to find others deserving the same focus, attention, and admiration.

As stated in my post from Berkeley Springs, I wondered into town several days before the memorial was even dedicated almost exactly four years ago.. You can view that post here.

CPL Leland A. Bailey was lost on September 20, 1969 at Quang Nam. he is honored on the memorial in Berkeley Springs, WV but was originally from Baltimore, Maryland and is honored by that state, also. All that I can find is that he was lost to "other explosive device." 

Leland A. Bailey

Larry Monroe Clark

Sp4 Clark is listed on this memorial in Berkeley Springs, and is buried in WV.  I discovered while looking for additional information about him that he grew up in my county in Maryland. Not 15 minutes away from where I grew up. So, he is honored on our Wall, too. A Wall I helped build. Very odd feeling finding this out today. He was lost to small arms fire on February 2, 1968.

The third name I was going to write about today is Richard Morgan Johnson jr. He is listed among the seven said to have been lost in Vietnam on the monument in Berkeley Springs.

1Lt Richard M. Johnson jr.

I can find no trace of him on any site confirming this.

What I have found, repeatedly, is Richard Morgan Johnson jr killed in Korea in 1968. This solder is from the same area and I have not been able to solve the mystery.* 

I will continue to seek information and hopefully will clear this up.

If you know anything about this, please contact me at the email listed on the left side of this post. 

I will certainly update if I learn anything new.

Next time, on September 14th, we will return to Wisconsin, to honor others so worthy of our admiration and never ending respect. Join me there, at 9:00 am., as always.

If you are following along at all, you will have seen that a number of you, like Joan from Wisconsin, Tony from Texas, Mike from Maryland, Ron from Florida, Tim from Virginia, Molly from Florida, Colleen from Pennsylvania, Elli from Maryland, and Peg and Ray from Florida, among others, have responded to my request to send me memorials you have seen in your area or where you may have traveled. I even got one from Ireland! These submissions help expand the knowledge of how we have remembered the men and women who served and/or were lost in 'Nam and you help to honor them. If you have any such photos, I would love to see them. Please send them along to the email at the left and I will gladly share them here.

I hope all those listed here will encourage you to send along photos and join the group!

* I spoke this evening with Chuck Hempe. the man who brought the Berkeley springs Memorial to life. He assured me that 1LT Johnson was in fact lost in Korea in an incident at the DMZ and was included here as a son of Berkeley Springs and a 'Nam era soldier. 

Georgia XV

The previous post from Georgia was from Griffin in Spaulding County. The park there has a number of memorials and two of them, at least, mention Vietnam.

In this first picture you see much of this beautiful spot, both memorials and the eternal flame in front of the memorial on the left.

This memorial honors the lost from both the Korean and Vietnam wars so one assumes that it was here first and the other added later.

Set just under a beautiful tree the memorial lists names form each conflict.

 These are the heroes honored here for all time.

To see the post about the other memorial here, please click on Georgia on the left side of this page and scroll back one post.

Next time, on the 11th, look for a special post about new findings about The Wall. Join me there at 11 minutes after 11am.

To see additional memorials from Georgia, or any other state, please click on the state name on the left side of this page.

Independence Day 2015

Followers know that at certain times of the year I choose to write about something other than Vietnam Memorials; Thanksgiving, Christmas, Veteran's Day, Memorials Day and others.

I have been thinking a lot recently about Independence Day and what it means. I guess if we asked 100 people we might get 100 different answers, but I think that it represents the bravery and thoughtful consideration of some very great men. Men who wanted freedom from tyranny and freedom to make their own choices, to establish rights for the common people, to live as they chose to live. A struggle that continues to this very day.

It got me thinking about how many have been willing to defend, often to their death, this dream. I went looking for this information and was, quite honestly, astonished at the numbers and some of the events, which I had never even heard of prior to seeing the list.

The numbers are staggering.

Since 1775, 664,440 have been lost in combat, more, 673,929 were lost to other war related incidents for a total of 1,354,644 lost, add to that the wounded and it doubles, again, 2,852,901.

These numbers are, of course, not exact or completely up to date as they change all the time. Recently, in May of 2015 several more names were added to the Vietnam Memorial, bringing the total to over 58, 300.

Vietnam ranks as the 4th highest loss rate of American wars, behind only the Civil Wat, WWI and WWII. Korea is 5th on the list and cost almost as many as Vietnam, but in far fewer years. Vietnam averaged 11 deaths a day while Korea averaged 45.

So, as we celebrate our founding and our freedoms lets also remember and honor the, literally, millions who made them possible.

Here, if you are interested, is the source of this information. Wiki is often criticized for inaccuracy and as I said these numbers can never really be known, but the number of involvements is astonishing, so check it out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war

The 4th of July was one of my favorite holidays in my youth. Summer, school was out, picnics, hot dogs and watermelon and fireworks, what kid could ask for more. Then, of course, I didn't really, deeply. fully, understand about the sacrifice, pain, and death that all of this encompassed. Now, I have a better idea and it saddens me. I don't much care for the holiday any longer. It is not that I don't respect and treasure the Founding Fathers, their efforts and the costs paid by those supporting these new ideas, no, it is that I no longer like the smell of the fireworks or the noise associated with them. It brings back too mush. I go every year because my son, years ago, and now his children, like all children, like me as a boy, enjoy it. I hope every year that just maybe this year will be better, but it never is. Sometimes, later in the evening, I watch the rerun of the fireworks on The Mall in D.C. on PBS and this is usually better; No noise, no smell of cordite. I will continue to go for the kids as long as they are interested, but am not sure what will happen after that. Perhaps, I will have moved on some more and it will be OK, but I doubt it, after all, it has been 50 years. I have no way to elegantly end this, so...

I'll end with a little historical side note.

Sometimes, it seems even the things we think we know are not so! We celebrate Independence Day, the day the Declaration of Independence was signed, on July 4th, but that is not the actual day the Declaration
was signed. It was signed on July 2nd, but the printer did not get around to printing it until the 4th, hence he dated it the 4th and the rest as we say, is history!

Next time, on the 9th we will return to South Dakota, so join me there at 9:00am.

To see Vietnam memorials from any state, click the state name on the left side of this page.