Korean, Vietnam War Dead to Be Honored

For the first time, the city will list on a public memorial the names of residents who died in the Korean and Vietnam wars.

A $15,000 donation from attorney James Ackerman, 79, a military veteran, will make the memorial possible.

“Many of us thought that the plaque we have here at City Hall had all the names of those who died from Huntington Beach,” said veteran Bob Kakuk, a Huntington Beach resident and team leader for Vietnam Veterans of Orange County. “It turns out the plaque was just World War I and II.

“That’s how this whole thing started, to get the Korean War veterans and the Vietnam veterans on there,” Kakuk said.

After 18 months of fund-raising, Kakuk had about $5,000 for the $20,000 project. City officials were ready to consider making up the difference when Ackerman, a veteran of World War II and Korea, offered to donate the needed funds.

About 150 names will be listed on a black granite stone to be displayed in a grassy area on the east side of City Hall. About eight names of World War II veterans who were mistakenly omitted from the original memorial will also be added.

“Nearly all the boys I went to school with were killed overseas in World War II,” said resident Rena Hewitt, who donated $2,500 in June 1995 for the granite. “I thought, if I put up the money for the wall, maybe somebody will put up the money for the rest of it.”

The monument is expected to be completed by Memorial Day 1997.

“I’ve got a brother who will never be coming back. He was on the [battleship] Arizona,” said John J. Maxwell, commander of the local American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts. “It’s important to honor the dead.”