Vietnam KIA Family Receives Apology After 49 Years

49 years later, apology for racism from American Gold Star Mothers brings healing for Steelton family 
PennLive.com
By Debbie Truong
May 09, 2015

The sadness, anger and frustration that lingered from that slight was eased only recently after a classmate of Lise learned the family's story and helped seek a written apology from the organization.

It was March of 1966. Tracie Garnett, 6, was playing house in the playroom at her home on Ridge Street when a driver from the Steelton Taxi Cab Company pulled up. Tracie answered and was handed a Western Union telegram.

Reuben Garnett was killed trying to save a fellow officer during the Vietnam War. According to his family, decorations, personal and unit awards were not reflected in his record. Also, according to his family, Garnett's mother submitted an application to join the American Gold Star Mothers shortly after her son's death but was told that other mothers in the organization were uncomfortable with her joining because she was black. India Elaine Garnett, Tracie Garnett, and Lise Garnett, 3 of Reuben's sisters, with some of his medals. Sean Simmers, PennLive.com. May08 2015. (SEAN SIMMERS)

One of her parents — Tracie, now 55, can't remember which — read the note and started crying. Her brother, Reuben Louis Garnett Jr., the only boy and the oldest in the family, had died in the Vietnam War.

He was "on a combat operation when hit by hostile small arms fire," the telegram, addressed to Reuben's parents, read. He was 23.

Tracie was too young to understand what death meant. But her three older sisters — Janine Garnett, Lise Garnett and India Elaine Garnett — did.

Janine, 9, cried to herself on the stairs. Lise, 12, doesn't remember much of that day — she's blocked it from her memory, she said. Half a block away, India, 22, began screaming and wailing after her parents came over and showed her the note.

The Garnett sisters point to their brother's death as a turning point in their family's history. Their mother, they said, was forever changed. Her loss was further compounded after she tried to join a local chapter of the American Gold Star Mothers, an organization for mothers who lost a child in the military, and was turned away because she was black.
read more here

Apology letter erases years of hurt for woman India Elaine Garnett, 71, said an apology from the American Gold Star Mothers helped erase 49 years of agony. In the video, she is opening a gift bag containing an American Gold Star Mothers flag.