Names Added to Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Source: VOA News

Suzanne Presto, Brian Allen

The U.S. National Park Service and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund say six names have been added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, bringing the total number of names on the wall to 58,267. These additions were recognized officially during Monday's annual Memorial Day Observance at the memorial wall.

A woman named Beth Collum is flipping through a register to find the name of a young man she knew in the 1960s. Here is the story, in Beth Collum's own words.

"His name is John Barovetto, and uhm, where is he? B-a-r-o-v-e-t-t-o. He's from Davis, California. ...A rugby player of my dad's," she said. "My dad was a combat Marine in Korea and WWII, and he was a rugby coach and a football coach at the University of California. The 1960s was really not a troop-friendly kind of place, and this young man went to join the Army and he went to war. And people, well-meaning people, would send him the Daily Californian and stuff like that and he'd find out about all the protests and the riots, and it was really demoralizing. And he would write to my dad," said Collum.

"I have some of his letters that he wrote to my dad thanking my dad for . . it was sort of a combat-to-combat, different, Korea-to-Vietnam, sort of thing. And then he came home from his first tour and before he went up home to Davis, he came to dinner and my mom fixed a roast, prime rib and all that kind of stuff, and it was really nice. And he had these jewels, well he thought they were black pearls, and he told his mom when he got home, he said, "Send those pearls to Mrs. Collum and her daughter." I was 16, no 15," she said.


Read more: http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Names-Added-to-Vietnam-Veterans-Memorial-95273284.html

---

Photos and video at link with full story.