Neither Years Nor Tears Can Ease the Loss

An estimated 25,000 people are expected to attend at 1 p.m. Saturday the unveiling of a memorial to the soldiers from California who died in the Vietnam War.

The California Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a $2.2-million monument funded through private donations, includes the names of 5,822 servicemen and women killed or missing in action.

Events surrounding the dedication of the memorial on the grounds of the state Capitol in Sacramento will include a veterans march at 11:15 a.m. Saturday from Capitol Mall to the monument, a marathon reading of the names on the memorial and a “buddy search” based on a computerized list of veterans (for more information, call (916) 327-0077).

On the eve of the dedication of the state memorial, five Orange County families shared their memories of the loved ones they lost in Vietnam.

“Dear Mom: Well, how’s all? Got a letter from Pop today. He should be here about the 20th of October. Says he thinks I should leave, so I will. I won’t be writing for a week or so. Our whole regiment is moving north. But please, please don’t worry. I only worry when I know you worry about me. . . . “

Margaret Johnson bows her head over the letter from her son, dated Oct. 1, 1967. In the living room of her Tustin home, she is surrounded by letters and photographs that, for the moment, bring back her boy--a lanky, red-haired, freckle-faced soldier who dreamed of vacationing in Hawaii and buying a Volkswagen with his nearly $1,000 in savings.

The letter was written 17 days before Lance Cpl. Lawrence Churchill, a Marine Corps machine gunner who had volunteered to serve in Vietnam, was killed in an ambush along with 32 others in his company.

If he’d lived, the Tustin High School graduate would be 40 now. And if he’d stuck to his plan, he’d be working as an architect. But to his mother, he’ll always be a 19-year-old kid with a head full of dreams.

She dreamed about him the night before three Marines came to her office and told her he was dead. Later, at the funeral service, she recognized the image she had seen in her dream--her son silent, visible only from the waist up, surrounded by people. She is grateful she was able to view the body. “Otherwise, it would never have been real to me.”

It was real almost immediately to Vernon Churchill, who was a first sergeant in the Marines and divorced from Margaret Johnson when his son was sent to Vietnam. He managed to obtain orders to take Larry’s place in combat, invoking a Marine Corps regulation saying no two members of a family need serve in battle at the same time.

He had arrived in Vietnam Oct. 18 and was waiting for his son’s company to return from patrol when news of the ambush reached the command post, Johnson said. Churchill, who now lives in Florida, identified his son’s body and brought him back to be buried near Johnson’s home.

After losing two brothers in World War II, Johnson had felt her son was safe. “I thought I’d had my share, and it couldn’t happen to me again.”

A sense of patriotism had helped after her brothers died. But Johnson’s other two sons were protesting this war, and after Larry died, “I felt I should have been protesting it too,” she said. “President Johnson wrote me a letter telling me my son hadn’t died in vain, but I didn’t believe it.”

She and her husband, Floyd Johnson--Larry’s stepfather--have visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington and they plan to go to the memorial in Sacramento someday. For the families, the memorials provide some solace, she said, but “they don’t take away the grief.” However, she hopes they’ll help remind “the public and the politicians that we never, ever want to have another Vietnam.”

William Cherry was about to escort his daughter Peggy down the aisle to her husband-to-be when suddenly he began to cry and couldn’t stop. His wife Peg knew it wasn’t the wedding that had moved him. Later he told her, “All I could see was the coffin draped in a flag.”

Ten years earlier, he had come to the same church for the funeral of the oldest of his eight children, Army Sgt. William Temen Cherry Jr.

It’s been 21 years since Bill Jr. was killed in Vietnam. But for his father, it might as well have happened yesterday. “He still can’t talk about it. He hasn’t worked out his grief,” Peg Cherry said.

Cherry’s eyes welled up with tears when he remembered his reaction when he found his son’s name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington recently. Soon he slipped out of the living room of his Anaheim home. His wife and daughters Cathy and Janet then took turns talking about Bill Jr., one picking up the story when another couldn’t stop the tears.

‘Shouldn’t Be Forgotten’

Though they were deeply moved by the memorial in Washington, they said, they feel the $2.2-million monument that will be unveiled in Sacramento Saturday “almost seems redundant,” Cathy Cherry said. The money would be better spent on Vietnam veterans, Peg Cherry said, although “the ones who made the supreme sacrifice shouldn’t be forgotten.”

Bill Jr.--an extrovert with a gentle smile who, according to Cathy Cherry, was “always happy, always singing”--had just turned 21 when he was drafted. He had been studying journalism and business at Fullerton Junior College and was planning to register at the University of Arizona, but a case of mononucleosis delayed him. Meanwhile, the draft notice came.

“He knew his father had served in World War II. He felt it was his duty to go,” Cathy Cherry said.

“I didn’t agree with the war. I didn’t think they should be there,” Peg Cherry said. “But I was glad he didn’t go to Canada because it meant a separation, and, of course, I thought he would come back.”

They were expecting him home by Christmas, 1967. Although his letters to his mother were reassuring, “he couldn’t wait to get home. He was counting the days,” she said.

In June, 1967, he wrote: “We got into quite a bit of action on the 25th of last month, and I’ve been recommended for a Bronze Star. But I don’t know whether I’ll get it, and I don’t really care. . . . “

Made It Harder

He died on Sept. 15, 2 weeks before his 23rd birthday. Officials told the family he had been shot by a sniper, but later they heard reports that he had stepped on a land mine. Not knowing how he died and not seeing the body made it harder for the family to lay their grief to rest.

“You never get to prove to yourself that it really happened. When the POWs came back, I sat there thinking my brother was going to walk off the airplane,” said Janet Compean, who participated in anti-war protests after her brother died.

Cathy Cherry said her feeling that her brother did not die for a noble cause has made the loss harder to accept.

But Jonathan Cherry, who named his 6-year-old son after Bill, said he isn’t bitter about losing his older brother to an unpopular war. “It may not have been the same as World War II, but they were there for the same reason--because our country told them we belonged there. Bill had a strong belief in his country. I don’t think he felt it was in vain. He just felt it was his responsibility to be there.”

James C. Shaw thumbed through the letters, carefully ordered and numbered, and began reading one written Dec. 19, 1970, when his son, an Army medic stationed in Vietnam, was looking forward to a leave that would be canceled.

“On Jan. 15, I should be on my way home if all goes well,” Jimmy Shaw wrote. His father stopped reading to solemnly add:

“And he was--in a body bag.”

On Jan. 8, 1971, James Robert Shaw, medical specialist fourth class, 22 years old, was killed when he stepped on a land mine as he was assisting soldiers injured in a helicopter accident. “He was trying to save some kids’ lives,” his mother, Gelia Shaw, said.

‘It Was Patriotic’

Their son had opted to be a medic instead of a gun-toting soldier because “he was kind of a conscientious objector,” James Shaw said. Jimmy was studying to be a minister and had been enrolled at Southern California College in Costa Mesa. Although he was an Orange County native and his home was with his parents in Orange, the state Vietnam Veterans Memorial will list him as being from Clovis. That was where he transferred his draft registration as a delaying tactic in an attempt to stay out of the war, his parents said.

“I don’t blame the guys that left the country or did whatever they had to do to get out of it because it really wasn’t our war. It had nothing to do with us,” his mother said. “But I felt it was patriotic and he should go and do what he could do, and he accepted that in the end and said OK.”

“He had run the gamut of all the fads previously, the hippie stuff and so forth, but he came to a real experience with Christ and it changed him around considerably,” James Shaw said.

Jimmy Shaw was a member of the first graduating class at Villa Park High School, where he had played varsity tennis and junior varsity football. After graduation, he was a guitarist in a band, cutting a record that his parents said apparently was played quite a bit overseas. It was titled “Coming Home,” and the lyrics spoke of going away, missing someone you love, and looking forward to returning home.

His letters to his parents told of some of the horrors he saw on the battlefront. “I’ve seen some pretty bad scenes here, almost all frag (fragment) or gunshot wounds,” he wrote in one letter. “ . . . I had to help put an airborne Ranger in a body bag. He had been dead for a while. . . .

“My faith is still strong, although there is no reason for it to be in this place. The men here are scared when they come in, afraid of losing limbs and not really knowing if they will live or die.”

His parents last saw him on Mother’s Day, 1970. Jimmy was supposed to have reported for duty the day before, but he went AWOL for one day to spend the special day at home, his mother said.

The Shaws’ voices hold a weary sadness as they speak of their only son, a handsome, red-haired young man who stares back seriously in photographs.

“Oh, it still hurts, you know, but we have to keep going,” Gelia Shaw said. “He wouldn’t have wanted us to sit around and mope.”

As an Army training officer at Fort Dix in New Jersey, it was once Bill White’s duty to inform families when a soldier was killed. One grief-stricken father said to Bill: “Why couldn’t it have been you instead of my son?”

Eileen White, Bill’s mother, remembered that when two Army officers came to her door on Memorial Day, 1970, to tell her that her “Billy”--Capt. William J. White Jr.--had been killed in Vietnam. She knew what they were going to tell her as soon as she saw their uniforms, and she shut the door before they could speak.

Bill was 26. He had stepped on a land mine during a mission to establish a helicopter landing zone. Just that week, White had received a letter from him telling her he was fine and reassuring her, “I’m keeping my head down, Mom.”

“I never saw him again,” said White, who lives in Orange, not far from the cemetery where Bill was buried. “The casket was sealed, and for a long time, I thought it was a mistake, that maybe it wasn’t really him. My husband felt the same way--until the dog tags came back.”

A Special Bond

Bill, the oldest of four children, was born while Bill Sr.--who died of cancer in 1977--was fighting in the Pacific during World War II. Bill was 2 years old before his father saw him for the first time, and White felt a special bond with the child who helped her endure those years of waiting.

Although both White and her husband came to believe that their son had died in “a senseless war,” Bill was raised with the sense of loyalty to country that his dad felt during World War II. Enlisting seemed like a natural thing to do when he was unable to decide what career to prepare for as a student at Cal State Long Beach.

“He liked Army life,” White said, and he had decided to make a career of it. He spent nearly 2 years training soldiers at Fort Dix, then was sent to Vietnam. He asked to serve as an adviser and train Vietnamese troops because, he told his mother, “I don’t want to be responsible for ever sending any boys to be killed.”

And yet, she said, “he felt, like we did at the time, that the war was to stop communism. He didn’t want communism to go any further than it had gone. He believed in that.”

Bill--a tall, dark, handsome man who loved baseball and had a girlfriend at home--told his parents before he left that if anything happened to him, he wanted his insurance money to go into a college fund for his 9-year-old brother.

Years of Dust

The flag that was wrapped around Bill’s coffin sits in a drawer, folded just as it was the day he was buried 18 years ago. His medals--and the letters White can’t bring herself to reread--have gathered years of dust.

White was deeply stirred by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington and hopes someday to find the same “quiet, respectful feeling” at the Sacramento memorial.

“If I hadn’t had my faith, I couldn’t have gotten through it. In the beginning, I was very bitter. I just kept saying why didn’t God take me? Why were we the ones who had to lose our son? I finally had to accept the will of God. Now I feel that Bill did what he was sent for on this earth, and it was time for him to go home.”

Jacques and Ruth Du Roy are sad and reserved when they talk about their son, Allen, an Army private who was killed 17 years ago. But there was a time, Jacques Du Roy said, “when we went off the deep end for a while.”

“We lost interest in a lot of things,” said Ruth Du Roy. Her husband “wouldn’t even know if he would have supper or not when he came home. I might not even have been home. I was working at the time, and I’d take off right from work and go to the grave and just bawl my eyes out.”

Allen, a 1967 graduate of Valley High School in Santa Ana, had been been attending Santa Ana College (now Rancho Santiago College) but dropped out for a semester when he married his high school sweetheart in 1969.

“I told him not to (drop out) because the Army would grab him, and he was just ready to go back to school again when they drafted him,” Jacques Du Roy said. But Allen enjoyed the military life and began talking about making a career of it.

Stepped on a Mine

Then early on the morning of April 18, 1971, Allen awoke, went for a walk “and I think he just forgot where he was at,” said Jacques Du Roy. Allen, 22, stepped outside the perimeter of his camp near the Cambodia-South Vietnam border and onto an American land mine.

The Du Roys buried Allen in Pacific View Memorial Park in Newport Beach, which overlooks the ocean. The ocean had long been a source of peace for Allen, they said. “If I got mad at him, he’d always go down to the ocean and meditate,” his mother said.

In 1980, Ruth Du Roy’s emotional wounds were reopened. After attending a dedication ceremony for a memorial honoring county men who died in the Vietnam War, she looked for her son’s name on the monument in Santa Ana. It was not there.

It apparently was not listed because the memorial honors those who were killed in action, and Allen’s death was ruled “accidental,” Jacques Du Roy said. But that made no difference to Ruth Du Roy. She campaigned to have his name added because her son fought for the country and died over there, the same as those who were killed during combat, she said. Five years later, Allen’s name was added to the county memorial.

The Du Roys, who have a daughter and two granddaughters, are now retired and travel a lot in their RV. One of their trips took them to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington where they found Allen’s name engraved in the black granite.

‘I Broke Down’

“That’s the only thing we saw in Washington, D.C.,” Jacques Du Roy said. The couple had no heart for any other sights. “I broke down. That’s the first time I ever really broke down.”

The Du Roys will not be at the Sacramento ceremony for the state war memorial, but Ruth Du Roy wants to make sure Allen’s name is there. “Because if it isn’t, I’ll fight again.” (Allen’s name is listed on the state memorial.)

While their eyes remain dry now as they remember their son--who would have been 40 last week--it is not for lack of grief.

“You never forget about it, that’s for sure. You never do,” said Jacques Du Roy. “You know, you lose your parents, and that’s part of life. That’s expected. But when you lose a child, that’s a shock you never get over.”

List of county servicemen killed in Vietnam. Page 4.