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Hidden Treasures From The Local History Room: Finding a Fallen Hero

by Vincent Bonacci on 2018-06-19T10:00:00-04:00 | 0 Comments

Vietnam Traveling WallThere are times when I am serving at the Adult Service Desk at the Greenburgh Public Library that I am challenged with a reference question which leaves me with a deep sense of humility and satisfaction. Recently, I received a call from out of the area for someone needing help finding a picture of a young man killed in action during the Vietnam War. She explained to me that the young man had served in the same platoon as her father who was also killed during the war, and that the picture would be posted on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund page for the Wall of Faces, in the Educational Center currently being built in Washington DC.

 I explained to her that it would take a couple of days to find a photo for her, but I would find it. She emailed me some information that might aid me in this search. One detail which she shared with me in our telephone conversation stayed with me: If we don’t find a picture of the young Corporal in question then his plot on “The Wall of Faces” would remain blank except for his name. To me, that would be sad.

The Vietnam War lasted two decades, and was the first war covered live on TV.  I remember watching the news in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, learning about the fighting in the land once known as Indochina.  With each passing week newscasters would sadly highlight the latest casualty report on the screen. One year, when my oldest brother became of age,  I remember my family anxiously listening to the draft lottery on radio for the order in which people would be drafted. They would pick numbers randomly and assign them to a corresponding birth date; so someone born on Jan 1, 1951 would have as much chance as December 25, 1951 of being selected first and have to report to the draft board. Fortunately my brother, who was picked 19th, got a medical exemption and did not have to serve in the war. For some of his classmates at Woodlands High School, as well as many others from across the country, this was not the case. Over 2.7 million Americans served their country in Vietnam. Sadly over 58,000 young men and women who went off to the war did not return…

The next morning I was sharing the information about my research question with a colleague, and my colleague told me that there is a Vietnam Traveling Memorial War (www.travelingwall.us) and it (was) coincidentally at DeLuca Park in Elmsford until June 10th.  The traveling wall is a three fifth scale of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. My colleague took a few photos of the wall at the park and made a tracing of the name of the fallen hero.

A fellow librarian at another library found his photograph and death announcement on microfilm and emailed them to me.  His photo can now be seen at http://vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/search/results?generalSearch=Walter+A+Joyce. I am extremely relieved to know that Lance Corporal Walter Aloysius Joyce of Scarsdale is more than just a name on the Wall of Faces.

 

 

 

 


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