Roll of Honor for Agent Orange Deaths

ON ROLL OF HONOR Defoliant used in Vietnam caused deaths years later

Published:Monday, April 21, 2008


By William K. Alcorn

Two former Youngstown men, casualties of the Vietnam War, will be honored on the In Memory Roll of Honor.

Youngstown natives Richard Merle Buccilli and Timothy Gerard Plaskett, who lived through the Vietnam War only to have the war cause their deaths decades later, are being recognized for their ultimate sacrifices.

Buccilli and Plaskett are among those who have died prematurely as a result of their service in the Vietnam War, but who are not eligible to have their names inscribed on The Wall, according to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund’s In Memory program.

But, because of the fund’s In Memory Honor Roll, they will not be forgotten.

At 10 a.m. today, 75 casualties of the Vietnam War, including Buccilli and Plaskett, will be honored at the 10th annual In Memory Ceremony in Washington, D.C., and have their names placed with about 1,750 others similarly recognized.

Buccilli served in the Navy from 1966 to 1972 and his ship was in the Vietnam area various times between 1966 and 1969. He was nominated for the In Memory Honor Roll by his sister, Sandra Kalafut of Youngstown. He died Aug. 22, 2005, at age 56.

Plaskett, who served in the Army from October 1968 to March 1972 and in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970, was nominated for the In Memory Honor Roll by his wife, Leesa Plaskett of Columbiana. He died June 9, 2003, of non-Hodgkins lymphoma as a result of exposure to Agent Orange, a defoliant used by the United States to destroy the Vietcong’s forest cover and food supply. He was 53.

Here are their stories as told by their survivors.

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