Graduates Will Recieve Rosette Adjacent To Name on Honolulu Vietnam Memorial
By Erika Norton, WPAOG Senior Multimedia Journalist
In conjunction with annual POW/MIA Recognition Day ceremonies, Vietnam veterans, including 11 West Point graduates, will be honored during a special ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. The “Court of the Missing” monument’s marble walls list the names of all service members who went missing in the Pacific theater during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and on September 20, a bronze “rosette” will be placed adjacent to each former Vietnam War MIA’s name on the memorial to signify that their remains were recovered and buried elsewhere.
The ceremony will be hosted by The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) and Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), and will be livestreamed.
The 11 West Point graduates who will each receive a rosette adjacent to their name are:
- Col. William G. Mason, USAF ’46
- Col. Norman. D. Easton, USAF ’49
- Col. Bobby G. Vinson, USAF ’50
- COL Sheldon J. Burnett ’54
- Col. Gregory I. Barras, USAF ’55
- Lt. Col. Merwin L. Morrill, USAF ’58
- CPT John N. Nash ’59
- Capt. Richard L. Whitesides, USAF ’59
- Maj. Stephen J. Kott, USMC ’62
- CPT Henry M. Spengler III ’68
- MAJ Kenneth J. Yonan ’69
The daughters of two Air Force pilots who went missing during the Vietnam War, Colleen Shine and Natalie Rauch, spearheaded the effort to properly designate the names on the Courts of the Missing monument in Honolulu. The two Vietnam War walls of the monument, erected in 1980, hold 2,504 names. The remains of more than 900 of those service members have been identified and accounted for since it was built, but only one rosette has been placed.
Recently, another West Point graduate, Jim Balkcom ’67, helped showcase a documentary called “Truths and Myths About the Vietnam War” to honor those who served in the Vietnam War. Watch the documentary here.
