In Memory Day honors Vietnam War veterans not listed on the Wall

In Memory Day honors Vietnam War veterans not listed on the Wall
By C.J. LIN
Stars and Stripes
Published: June 14, 2012

WASHINGTON — Capt. Walker Paul Fox’s name will likely never be engraved on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.

Fox, an Army helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War, died in October 2004 of a heart attack at age 59. But for 26 years after he came home from the war, he continued to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and other aftereffects, his wife, Carol, said.

So when Carol Fox placed a picture of her husband at the Vietnam Wall as part of the In Memory Day ceremony on Thursday, it was another bit of closure for her and the families of 96 veterans offered tribute.

“It’s a healing process,” said Carol Fox, who flew in from Texas for the ceremony.

“This is one of the last and biggest things I could ever do for him to honor him and his service. I thought Vietnam veterans were a forgotten group, and they’re not.”

Now in its 14th year, the In Memory program honors Vietnam veterans whose deaths do not meet Department of Defense criteria for their names to be added to the wall.

Most have died, years after the war, from various forms of cancer believed caused by Agent Orange.

“Sadly, some of the things that ultimately killed these men were things that were gotten through their service,” said Capt. Denis Faherty, who left the military in 2008 as the last Navy veteran from the Vietnam era. “These men who were inducted today, on a routine basis, would relive some of the horrors of war.
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