Group needs help finding families of three Vietnam veterans without headstones

Group needs help finding families of three Vietnam veterans without headstones on their graves
Posted: 10/10/2012
By: Julie Banovic
CLINTON TOWNSHIP, Mich.
WXYZ

A couple from a veteran’s group in Macomb County made it their mission to locate the grave of every Michigan man killed in Vietnam, but when they found something with three graves they asked 7 Action News for help.

“It’s not right, it needs to be corrected,” said Ruth Babcock of the Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 154 in Macomb County.

Her and her husband Charlie could not find the graves belonging to three Detroit men because they had no headstones. When they went to Lincoln Memorial Park in Clinton Township to visit their plots, all they found were numbers pressed in cement. The lots are numbers 27, 4, and 6.

“Those guys are American heroes. They gave their all in Vietnam for this country,” said Pat Daniels. Daniels is the past president of Chapter 154.

He tried to help Ruth and Charlie find the family members of the men to see if they wanted to the headstones owed to them.

“The least we owe them is to put those headstones on there and have their graves marked so that someone passes by there that they know there is an American hero in that ground,” said Daniels.

When they could not find the family members after weeks of research, the group turned to 7 Action News. The government pays for a military headstone as part of honoring their services.
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