The Morning Call
By Tom Shortell
August 15, 2015
"You can pray, you can cry, you can talk to them. It's so much more personal,"
Debra Reagan
Forty-four years ago, Army Specialist Bobby Nickols sent a letter to his family in Bethlehem. The form letter addressed to family, friends and draft-dodgers asked them to be patient with returning soldiers as they adapted to civilian life. It closed with the emphatic announcement that their soldier was coming home from Vietnam. Nickols scribbled in the margins that his tour would end in 16 days.
Richard A. Jones of Easton visits the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall in Moore Township.
(SHARON K. MERKEL / SPECIAL TO THE MORNING CALL)
The 20-year-old never reached the Lehigh Valley. His helicopter crashed at sea, and it was never clear if it was a malfunction or if it was shot down, said his sister Debra Reagan. His body was never recovered.
Reagan dug the letter out of safekeeping Friday night for a ceremony in Moore Township in front of the Vietnam Traveling Wall Memorial, a three-fifth scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. She had never read the letter publicly before, but she knew it was a fitting tribute to the 58,272 Americans named on the wall behind her as well as the veterans present.
"It was the one thing I wanted to do," Reagan said afterward as she smoked a cigarette to calm herself. "This was the perfect time to read it."
About 300 people attended the ceremony to pay their respects to the honored dead listed on the wall. State Sen. Mario Scavello and state Reps. Julie Harhart and Marcia Hahn spoke, followed by a three-volley gun salute by four members of the American Legion.
The wall was set up on a baseball field, but township officials provided benches for passers-by and mulch along the wall where people left roses, military patches and photos of the dead. Many in attendance were veterans with the Nam Knights, a national motorcycle club with a Lehigh Valley chapter that escorted the wall into the region.
Carrie Ball and her husband, Frank, came in lieu of Ronald P. Horsham, her father who served three years in Vietnam. Horsham died six weeks ago, but he would have loved the traveling memorial, she said. Despite suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and dealing with the aftereffects of Agent Orange, he lived and breathed for the Marines.
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