August 1, 2016 (Updated August 2, 2016)

To the military and veterans communities, nothing is more sacred or honored than the families of those who are grieving the death of their fallen military hero, a member of our armed forces who has died while serving their country.

More than a hundred years ago, the President of the United States wrote reverently to a grieving military mother, “I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.”

Regardless of religion, race, or creed, their sacrifice, the loss of a family member is unimaginable. Their loved one’s body is laid to rest under the American flag, in our national cemeteries, and their death is honored and remembered each Memorial Day by a nation grateful for their service.

In 2004, United States Army Captain Humayan Khan was killed by a suicide bomber when he rushed forward to protect his soldiers and nearby civilians.  As with so many families across the United States, the loss and sacrifice of the Khan family have earned them the right to ask hard questions of all those seeking elected office, whether at the local, state or national level.

As Republican, Democratic, and Independent military, veterans, family members and survivors, we ask that all candidates, at all levels, demonstrate the character demanded of the offices they seek and respect not only those who have paid the ultimate price for our freedom but also their families who have borne such a loss to protect our liberties.

Again in the words of Abraham Lincoln as he spoke to a nation divided by a great civil war, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.”

Thank you all for honoring America’s fallen heroes by respecting their families.

SIGNED:

Blue Star Families bridges the gap between military family communities and the general public. Through partnerships, Blue Star Families provides free resources, services, and opportunities to more than 1.5 million military family members—making military life more sustainable.

Give an Hour is a national nonprofit organization that provides free mental health care to those who serve, their families and their communities. Since 2005 Give an Hour has harnessed the generosity and expertise of mental health professionals across the country to provide over 192,000 hours of free care and support to members of the military, our veterans and the families of the fallen.

Gold Star Wives members are the widows/widowers whose spouses died while serving in the Armed Forces of the United States, or as a result of service-connected disabilities. Members of Gold Star Wives appear before various House and Senate Committees on issues concerning compensation, educational benefits, medical care and other programs pertaining to the welfare of military survivors.

Got Your 6 believes that veterans are leaders, team builders, and problem solvers who have the unique potential to lead a resurgence of community across the nation. Got Your 6 unites nonprofit, Hollywood, and government partners to integrate these perspectives into popular culture, engage veterans and civilians together to foster understanding, and empower veterans to lead in their communities.

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America is the leading post-9/11 veteran empowerment organization (VEO) with the most diverse and rapidly growing membership in America.

Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors has cared for the families of America’s Fallen Heroes since 1994, through programs and services that meet the needs of all those grieving the death of a military loved one. Support includes the 24/7 National Military Survivor Helpline; retreats, camps and survivor weekends for all who are grieving; connections to community-based care; and a national network of peers.

Travis Manion Foundation engages with veterans and families of the fallen in all stages of their personal journeys and offers them unique opportunities to empower them to achieve their goals. TMF believes that the best way to honor the fallen is by challenging the living. TMF challenges veterans and survivors to lead the “If Not Me, Then Who…” movement and inspire others to continue the service to community and country exemplified by the nation’s fallen heroes.

Sons and Daughters In Touch is a 27-year-old non-profit organization committed to locating, uniting and supporting the Gold Star ‘sons and daughters’ whose fathers were among the 58,315 American servicemen lost in the Vietnam War. The fathers of SDIT’s members served at every rank in every branch of the United States military; fought in every battle during our nation’s involvement in SE Asia; and are now remembered on every panel of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Today, SDIT has impacted the lives of nearly 5000 Gold Star ‘sons and daughters.’

The Mission Continues is a national nonprofit organization that empowers veterans who are adjusting to life at home to find purpose through community impact. Our operations in cities across the country deploy veteran volunteers alongside non-profit partners and community leaders to solve some of the most challenging issues facing our communities: improving community education resources, eliminating food deserts, mentoring at-risk youth and more. Through this unique model, veterans build new skills and networks that help them successfully reintegrate into life after the military while making long-term, sustainable transformations in communities and inspiring future generations to serve.

Hope For The Warriors is a national nonprofit founded in 2006 dedicated to restoring a sense of self, family, and hope for post 9/11 veterans, service members and military families. Since its inception, Hope For The Warriors has served approximately 10,000 through a variety of support programs focused on transition, health and wellness, peer engagement and connections to community resources. The nonprofit’s first program, A Warrior’s Wish, has granted 151 wishes to fulfill a desire for a better quality of life or support a quest for gratifying endeavors. In addition, Run For The Warriors has captured the hearts of more than 22,000 since 2010.

Women Veterans Interactive (WVI) is a national nonprofit organization formed in 2011 to meet women veterans at their points of need through advocacy, empowerment, interaction, and unification (AEIOU). Because every woman veteran is unique, WVI programs are distinctly designed to address the specific needs of the emergent women veterans’ population. Since inception in 2011, WVI has supported over 1,300 women veterans and women in the military.

Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America was founded in 1896 and is one of the oldest active veterans’ organizations in America. JWV is dedicated to upholding America’s democratic traditions and fighting bigotry, prejudice, injustice, and discrimination of all kinds. As a national organization, JWV represents the voice of America’s Jewish veterans on issues related to veterans’ benefits, foreign policy, and national security. JWV also commits itself to the assistance of oppressed Jews worldwide.

Stars and Stripes: A wash to honor fathers’ sacrifice
Families gather for a cleaning of the Wall

By Heath Druzin

WASHINGTON — For years, Patty Lee didn’t speak about her father; her mother never discussed him with her six children.

But Sgt. 1st Class Delbert C. Totty hadn’t done anything wrong. The unspoken truth was that he was killed in action in Vietnam when Lee was 12 years old.

“We all grew up in silence,” Lee said of a generation of children whose fathers died in a war many wanted to forget. “We didn’t talk about Vietnam, we didn’t talk about our fathers.”

It’s difficult to fathom in this age of solemn homages to troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and warm welcomes when they come home safely, but for the children of Vietnam veterans, the fate of their fathers was often a dark secret.

Lee, now 60, didn’t have a chance to grieve for 25 years until 1992, when a new group, Sons and Daughters in Touch, organized a gathering at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., for children of troops lost in the war. For many like Lee it was the first time they met others with similar stories — the first time they didn’t feel alone.

The 1992 gathering sparked what became a regular Father’s Day weekend tradition for survivors, many of whom didn’t find their voice until they had outlived their fathers, long after the war was over.

On Saturday, more than two decades after that initial meeting, in the murky light of a cloudy early morning, the polished granite of the memorial wall reflected the images of more than 100 people — some using walkers, others still with braces on their teeth, many carrying brushes and buckets of soapy water. Pointing to one of the 58,000 names on the wall, they recalled a loved one.

It was the beginning of a weekendlong event organized by Sons and Daughters in Touch and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund for survivors to coincide with Father’s Day. There will be a public ceremony at the memorial on Sunday beginning at 10 a.m.

All these years later, meeting at the wall is still an emotional event even for regular attendees.

“It’s very personal,” Lee said, choking up as she prepared to wash the wall Saturday.

Now, the children of the fallen bring their own children to wash the wall together. It is about much more than lending a hand to the National Park Service. It is a symbolic gesture that for many is the only chance they had to do something for their father.

“This is more about the catharsis,” said Sons and Daughters In Touch co-founder Tony Cordero, whose father, Air Force Maj. William E. Cordero, was killed in Vietnam.

Colleen Shine washed the wall with her son, Matthew Luepke, 10, and her daughter, Chiara Luepke, 12. They were washing the panel that bore the name of Shine’s father, Lt. Col. Anthony C. Shine. Growing up, she experienced the additional pain of missing her father and not knowing his fate. He was considered missing in action for 24 years after his plane went down near the Vietnam-Laos border in 1972.

After navigating the Communist country’s bureaucracy and a journey deep into the countryside near the Laos border, she found a villager who had a helmet that matched the description of the helmet her father was supposed to have worn on his final flight. When she turned it over, she saw his name handwritten on the inside.

For Shine, 50, the most important part of the wall washing is the lessons for her children, who never got to meet their grandfather.

“What it’s about is teaching them the issues of war so we’ll not have to repeat them,” Shine said. “Seeing my children clean the wall and seeing our reflections is a reminder that we are the living legacies of that wall.”

druzin.heath@stripes.com

Ten years ago – March 17, 2003 – more than 50 American Gold Star “sons and daughters” who lost their fathers in the Vietnam War stood in the Singapore International Airport, watching on television as President Bush warned Saddam Hussein that failure to leave Baghdad would result in military action against his regime.

Within this Gold Star delegation were the now-grown children of men who served in every branch of the US military: enlisted, draftees and officers. Their fathers served in every era of the war; some were killed early in their tours of duty, others completed months and years of service, and some were still Missing in Action. Four of their fathers were posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The group was returning from an emotionally draining two-week trek across Southeast Asia, to see the places their fathers fought and died nearly four decades earlier. These sons and daughters who had just struggled to confront the war that had taken their fathers and robbed them of childhood innocence would return home to face war again.

* * *
In June 2000, during a Father’s Day ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Sons and Daughters In Touch announced a first-ever historic trek to Vietnam. I was the first time such a large group of Gold Star family members traveled to see, taste and touch the country where 58,282 Americans were lost. Within a month of the announcement, two Veterans organizations – Vietnam Veterans of America and VietNow – pledged their moral and financial support for the historic and emotional journey.

On March 2, 2003, a team of 20 Vietnam combat veterans and nurses braved their own emotions to lead 50 Gold Star sons and daughters from Los Angeles to Vietnam.  It was fitting that their pre-trip press conference was held at the Bob Hope Hollywood USO as many of their fathers had enjoyed USO shows hosted by Hope and other Hollywood celebrities. A message of support from the aging Bob and Delores Hope was delivered by their personal representative.

The delegation – with the theme “In Honor, Peace and Understanding” – set out to honor their fathers, achieve a degree of inner peace, and gain a better understanding of what their fathers experienced in Vietnam. Upon touching down in Ho Chi Minh City, they broke into an unrehearsed, celebratory round of applause – a sentiment that in the in the 1960s and 70s would have been unfathomable.

As they acclimated to the culture, the group stayed at Saigon’s famed Rex Hotel and met with representatives of the U.S. Embassy.  They made day trips to the floating markets on the Mekong Delta, absorbed tours to historical sites, visited local restaurants and participated in random exchanges with locals.

They then broke into smaller teams for travel to the different corners of Vietnam where their fathers died in hamlets, jungles, rice paddies and atop craggy mountain sides.  Months of planning and research enabled them to collect soil, burn incense and lay flowers while standing in the exact spot where their fathers were lost – their personal ground zero.

When they weren’t engulfed in absorbing their own loss, the sons and daughters consoled each other as they had experienced similar losses and faced similar emotions.

* * *

Last month, America marked the 40th anniversary of “Operation Homecoming” – the return of U.S. Prisoners of War from Hanoi and the Department of Defense recently launched an effort to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War.  A total of 58,282 names are now inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and a new Education Center is underway to tell the stories of each of them.

Vietnam is forever etched into America’s history and psyche.

Tracing a fathers’ footsteps enabled Vietnam to become a destination of remembrance, celebration and understanding rather than  the source of enduring nightmares.  When the time is right, perhaps this trip can serve as motivation and model for America’s new generation of Gold Star families – that they might trace the final footsteps of their loved ones.

Maybe our visit to Hanoi will be their visit to Baghdad, and our visit to Hue City theirs to Fallujah. Just as we crawled through the Cu Chi Tunnels, maybe they’ll walk the streets of Ramadi. Learning how U.S. Veterans are working with Project RENEW to rid Vietnam of thousands of unexploded ordinances may engender a humanitarian project to rid Iraq of unexploded IEDs.

* * *

Ten years later, debating the reasons for our nation’s invasion in Iraq is as rending as considering rationale for America’s involvement in Vietnam.  Yet, discounting military families – especially Gold Star children – is a mistake never to repeat.  In our age of instant communication, it’s easy to locate, connect with, and meet the needs of families torn apart by war.

Seventy-plus years after WWII, sixty-plus after Korea, fifty past Vietnam and so many other conflicts, and now ten years after the start of the war in Iraq, Sons and Daughters In Touch continues to champion the needs of Gold Star families from all wars.  First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden are focusing attention on America’s military and Gold Star Families, too, but there is more to be done.

The “Gold Star” designation  is un-chosen and unending.  It is a constant reminder of what was lost, and what might have been. Yet it preserves the memories of a fallen father or mother who wore our Nation’s uniform, and adds indelible words to the pages of American history. For Gold Star families, it can be a debilitating anchor or life”s springboard, inspiring them to move beyond the pain. Sons and Daughters in Touch hopes our journey will serve as inspiration to this latest generation of  Gold Star Children.