Mission Accomplished : Veteran Delivers Medal to a Fallen Soldier Overseas

It was one grave among thousands on a gentle hillside in Belgium.

On Memorial Day two years ago, Wallace Perry went to the American Cemetery in Henri-Chapelle to honor a stranger.

He was there to find the grave of a soldier he had never met for a young woman he barely knew. He was there because Marylin Scott asked him to locate where her father, Pvt. George Scott, was buried in the waning days of World War II. When he found it, Perry was to place on the grave a tiny medal from Scott’s daughter, a medal inscribed “Peace on Earth.”

Perry, 67, of Torrance did those things, just as he had promised. Now, he hopes he can find Scott to tell her.

On March 14, 1986, Perry, a chatty Army Air Corps veteran, met Scott, whom Perry remembers as “a lovely woman” with two “very nice” young sons, as the Great Peace March passed through Barstow.

They spoke, of all things, about Belgium during World War II. “She found out that I had spent a lot of time there, that I still traveled there often to organize an international center for peace,” he said.

Perry, a retired flight researcher, is leading a drive to build in Belgium a memorial that would be moved to Los Angeles or San Francisco to honor GIs killed in Europe.

The young woman, Perry said, was somber when he mentioned Belgium. “She told me her father was a soldier killed in Belgium during World War II,” Perry said. “She said she had never known him because she was born just before his death.”

Pvt. Scott, 36th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Armored Division, died Sept. 4, 1944, during a tank battle to liberate Belgium, according to Perry’s research. He was 24 years old.

Marylin Scott was only 2 months old. Over the years, she told Perry, she shared the wish of many children whose servicemen fathers are buried far away.

Certain he would visit Belgium again, Perry promised Scott he would find her father’s grave. When he did, he said, he would send word to her in Calpella, a town just north of Ukiah in Mendocino County. She had no telephone but gave Perry a post office box address there.

With that, Perry and Scott parted company. Their talk, he said, lasted no more than 20 minutes.

Two years passed before Perry, delayed by poor health and heart surgery, traveled to Belgium. By then, he had pinpointed the whereabouts of Scott’s grave with the help of the American Battle Monuments Commission. “They take care of cemeteries all around the world,” he said.

The commission notified Perry that Scott was buried at the American Cemetery and Memorial in Henri-Chapelle, in eastern Belgium, with rolling hills reminiscent of the Mendocino County countryside.

Perry tried to pass the news on to Scott’s daughter, but his letter was never answered or returned.

On Memorial Day, 1988, Perry went to the cemetery with Johan Lamoral, a longtime friend and assistant editor of Gazet Van Antwerpen, Belgium’s best-known Flemish newspaper.

“As I walked along the graves, I thought to myself, ‘Goodness, how many fathers are buried here who never met their children,’ ” Perry said.

Finally, the men found Scott’s grave. Pulling the small medal from his coat pocket, Perry placed it on the grave.

On his return to the United States, Perry was eager to contact Marylin Scott. His letters were never answered or returned. He could not find a telephone listing. Perry said he is not sure why Scott has not tried to contact him. Perhaps she thought his promise was nothing more than a nice gesture, easier to make than to keep.

Last year, he made another trip to Henri-Chapelle, stopping again at Scott’s grave. “When I went back and looked at the crosses, I didn’t see crosses.” Perry said. “I saw men standing up. I saw mothers and fathers, sisters, brothers and children instead of seeing graves.”

That image, Perry says, keeps him searching for Scott.

“I won’t be satisfied until this woman gets these things for herself, her children, and for Private Scott,” Perry said. “Most of all, for Private Scott.”