LA HABRA : Vet’s Daughter Fights to Get Dad on Wall

The battle isn’t over for Elaine Roach.

Roach was hoping that her father’s name would be inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington by this Veterans Day.

But it was not added to the list of the more than 58,000 names already inscribed. The Department of the Navy told Roach in March that the circumstances of her father’s death did not meet the criteria.

Her father, Lt. Harold S. Roach Jr., 31, a Navy pilot, was killed Oct. 2, 1964, when his aircraft crashed in the South China Sea, in the early stages of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

In a visit 1 1/2 years ago on Father’s Day to the memorial, Roach, 37, of La Habra, discovered that her father’s name was missing from the wall.

After that trip, she contacted the Department of the Navy to ask about the omission. And in the months that followed, she became frustrated with the bureaucracy and the slow response.

But in March, a Whittier private investigator, with whom she had conducted business and who happened to have been stationed on the same aircraft carrier as her father, offered to help.

Tom Barnes, 46, now an officer with the Coast Guard Reserve, served on the carrier Kearsarge in 1965, one year after the crash.

Barnes, who had heard of the crash that killed Roach’s father, made inquiries to the Navy. Roach then received a letter on March 31 from the Navy, telling her that “most regrettably, we cannot support your request.”

Roach said the letter was devastating, draining her will to pursue her dream of seeing her father’s name on the wall.

“It was tough for me,” she said. “It was way more upsetting than I realized it would be.”

The Navy told her that her father’s aircraft crashed about 300 miles outside the combat zone and occurred while he was conducting a routine training flight.

The Navy letter also said that the aircraft was destroyed after it hit the water 400 to 500 yards from the carrier.

Roach said regardless of the circumstances surrounding the crash, his mission in the South China Sea was to be ready for war.

“He was there in active duty and was ready to fight at any time,” she said.

Barnes agreed that Roach’s father should be given the recognition. “He was actively participating in a foreign conflict,” he said. “Their whole mission was that they were heading to a war zone.

“The government should take a closer look at this. It means a lot for this family. He was over there protecting this country. What is it going to cost the government? Why draw a line in the sand?”

In the letter, the Navy stated that the memorial “was erected to pay tribute to all who served during the Vietnam Era,” and that names inscribed reflect those whose deaths were combat-related.

The memorial also includes the names of those who died in a combat zone, or as a result of wounds received in combat. In addition, those who died while en route to or from a combat mission over the combat zone, and those who died while in direct support of combat operations are also memorialized on the wall.

Now Roach plans to investigate further the carrier’s mission. If it was en route to a combat zone, it would make her father eligible for the tribute.

“Eventually (the Navy) thought I would give up the battle,” she said. “That’s the way I felt too.

“But now, I’m ready to go back to battle with them. . . . I’m going to keep working on it because I believe his name should be on there.”