Young Girl's Santa Letter Changed Soldier's Life

Santa letter 50 years ago changed lives
The Republic
By Staff Reports
12/23/16

Written by Kim Stover

Our shared wish for an end to armed conflict still resonates, and my Vietnamese doll still stands on my desk, a testament to a young soldier’s big heart and a young girl’s belief in Santa Claus and in goodness itself.

Fifty years ago, the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal published my letter to Santa Claus, shaping my adult life.

When my second-grade teacher, Judy Williamson Mervine, assigned a letter to Santa Claus, I wrote, “Dear Santa Claus, Please stop the war in Vietnam and give all of my toys to the people there so they will have a good Christmas and if I don’t get any toys I won’t care because Christmas is when the baby Jesus was born in the manger and we have gifts to celebrate Christmas. Kimberly Ann Stover.”

Surprised that my letter asked for something beyond toys, Mrs. Mervine decided to contact the Journal.

The Journal reporter asked me what war was, and I said it was fighting with guns. She asked me if I really believed in Santa Claus, and I said yes, but admitted, “Santa might not get there because his reindeer would get tired.” She also asked if Santa had any toys left over, what present would I want. I said a doll.

The front page of the Dec. 22, 1966, Journal featured the story.

Close to where my family lived, Mrs. Anita Ripley read the article and sent it to her son, Private First Class Jim Ripley, who was stationed near Saigon working as a heavy vehicle driver in Company B of the 69th Engineering Battalion of the U.S. Army.

Then Jim decided to make sure that I got that doll.
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TIME Doesn't Remember Longest War Was Vietnam

Ok, it has been 15 years and we lost a lot of lives during combat and afterwards. The thing is, we lost a lot during Vietnam, during combat and afterwards. It seems as if that war has been edited for convenience.

1956

The first American soldier killed in the Vietnam War was Air Force T-Sgt. Richard B. Fitzgibbon Jr. He is listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having a casualty date of June 8, 1956.

1975 

The last American soldier killed in the Vietnam War was Kelton Rena Turner, an 18-year old Marine. He was killed in action on May 15, 1975, two weeks after the evacuation of Saigon, in what became known as the Mayaguez incident.

As you can see from the Vietnam Memorial, it was one month shy of 20 years. When will any of these reporters figure that one out? 

The Longest War in U.S. History Began 15 Years Ago. See Its Effect on One Veteran
TIME
October 7, 2016

The United States began the War in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001

When the U.S. began its attack on Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, Nick Mendes was an 11-year-old who loved to play video games.

By the time ten years had passed, Nick Mendes had become Sgt. Mendes of the U.S. Army. In 2011, in Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province, he was blown up by an IED and paralyzed from the neck down.

“I remember ten seconds afterwards,” he recalls, “but then I blacked out.”

Afghanistan has become America’s longest war, and American troops still remain in the region years after the official 2014 end of the conflict. Sgt. Mendes, now 26, is one of more 20,000 U.S. service members injured in that war—numbers that don’t include traumatic brain injury and PTSD. Sgt. Mendes’ life was saved by battlefield practices that have been honed and improved after years of such incidents in the region. He and many others are part of the population of service members who would likely have died in previous conflicts, in the days before modern battlefield medical protocols were introduced, but instead have returned home to drastically different and often devastatingly challenging circumstances.
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Would be a good idea if they did remember considering none of the wounds or problems these veterans face are new. Would be good to mention that with all these decades of "addressing" PTSD, suicides, VA claims and Congress funding bills that don't work while holding hearings on the increase of suicides, especially with veterans over the age of 50, it would all be more worthy of their struggles to actually do some meaningful reporting on all this.

Troy Vietnam Memorial Destroyed by Unlicensed Driver

Police: Unlicensed driver destroyed Vietnam memorial in Troy
Oneida Daily Dispatch
By Nicholas Buonanno
September 27, 2016 

TROY 
A Troy woman was ticketed after crashing Sunday morning into a memorial just dedicated just last year to a city native who died in the Vietnam war.

Troy firefighters look over a memorial dedicated in 2015 to a Troy man killed during the Vietnam war that was destroyed Sunday morning when it was struck by a vehicle. SIDEWINDER PHOTOGRAPHY

The incident occurred on Sunday morning near the bridge at Spring Avenue and Hill Street in Troy.

City police spokesman Capt. Daniel DeWolf said Neressa Harden, 36, failed to stop at the intersection of Spring Avenue and Ida and Hill streets, proceeding through the intersection and crashing into a memorial to Robert Felter, a U.S. Marine who was killed in action Dec. 11, 1965.
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First All Female Veteran Honor Flight Brings Women Together

First all-women Veterans’ Honor Flight from Columbus visits D.C. war memorials
Department Veterans Affairs
Jennifer Sardam
September 21, 2016

“Most times, women were not wanted overseas unless you had a nurse’s degree, and you could take care [of] or nurture the men that were injured,” said Dorothy “Dottie” Wolfe, who served in the Marine Corps, Marine Corps Reserve and Air National Guard. “But I served, and I was proud to have served. I would have gone had they sent me, under any situation. That’s what you signed the contract for, and I knew it.”

Honor Flights from across the country bring Veterans to Washington, D.C., several times a week.

But Sept. 10, the Honor Flight Columbus organization out of Ohio sent the group’s first all-women Veterans’ Honor Flight to the nation’s capital. While there, 81 women—Veterans of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War—visited their respective monuments.

The trip to Washington kicked off with a hosted event at the Women in Military Service for America (WIMSA) Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, and included stops at a number of sites: the Iwo Jima Memorial, the U.S. Air Force Memorial and the memorials for World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Wilma L. Vaught—one of the most decorated women in U.S. military history—was among those who greeted the group at the WIMSA Memorial; in 1966, she was also the first woman to deploy with an Air Force bomber wing.

“It means so much to see this group of women come in and see what the memorial means to them, because it does mean something to them,” said Vaught. “It is seeing their service to our country paid tribute to by the nation. And yet with it all, there comes laughter and joy, and that’s the way it ought to be about serving our country.”

As the pioneers of their times, these women blazed a path that until then was only traveled for men. And yet despite their contributions, they weren’t so readily accepted as equals.

“My career field was supposed to be aerospace jet mechanic,” said retired Air Force Veteran Phyllis Collins, who goes by the nickname “Sunshine.”

“And the guys didn’t like me there … I was supposed to be working on a dead battery. They hooked it up, and I got zapped,” she said. “So I changed my career field real fast. I became a military cop.”
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Ghost Riders Reunite In Pensacola

Famed Navy fighter squadron reunites in Pensacola
Pensacola News Journal
Melissa Nelson Gabriel
September 14, 2016

The squadron honored Perry and Beck by painting "Lady Jessie" on the side of its commander's jet.

An aircraft painted by VA-164 to honor Navy Lt. Cmdr. Dick Perry.

(Photo: National Naval Aviation Museum)

A famed Vietnam-era Navy fighter squadron will reunite in Pensacola on Saturday to share a unique story about their tribute to a fallen colleague and the woman who helped boost their morale during their long combat deployments.

The pilots of VA-164 flew A-4 Skyhawks off the USS Oriskany in 1966 and 1967, during an intense period of combat that included the deaths of 44 sailors in a hangar bay fire.

The men from the squadron, known as the Ghost Riders, will share their story on Saturday at the National Naval Aviation Museum.

"It is a unique story in the history of naval aviation," said Hill Goodspeed, historian for museum.

Squadron pilot Dick Perry worked at a Reno, Nevada, casino with Jessie Beck before he joined the Navy. Beck owned a keno concession at a casino. Beck and Perry became close friends and continued their friendship after Perry joined the Navy.
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Vietnam Helicopter Survived Being Shot Down 4 Times, Vandalized in Kansas City

Helicopter shot down 4 times in Vietnam vandalized in Kansas City
BY FOX 4 NEWSROOM
SEPTEMBER 13, 2016

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A 50-year-old helicopter that flew 3,500 hours of combat in Vietnam and was shot down four times, will need to be repaired before it can be used again at special events.

According to Arnold Swift, a Vietnam veteran who helps take the helicopter to various events, they were preparing to take the helicopter to the atrium in Overland Park for an event.

“The tow truck got here and realized that they had busted out the chin bubble, the side window and the back window and vandalized stuff inside the helicopter,” said Swift.

“It didn’t make any sense because all they got away with was a flight uniform, a Vietnam era flight uniform and a pair of combat boots and one other boot,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense because we’ve got mock-up weapons and everything in there that weren’t even touched.”
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How Coffee Became Salvation for Soldiers and Veterans

If you read Wounded Times then you know about Point Man International Ministries being started by a Vietnam veteran, Seattle Police Officer meeting other veterans for coffee to help them heal. Just thinking about that simple act of kindness and time saving so many lives makes me proud to be among them.

If War Is Hell, Then Coffee Has Offered U.S. Soldiers Some Salvation
KAZU NPR
By THE KITCHEN SISTERS
July 25, 2016

"The UFO became a place where soldiers could gather and talk openly about their worries and frustrations, without the military brass around," Gardner recalls. And in Columbia, says Gardner, UFO was a rarity ­­-- a place that "not just black and white but students and soldiers" could share.

During the Vietnam War, GI coffeehouses located near military posts became a place for soldiers to gather and organize against the war. Since 2007, veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

In April 1865, at the bloody, bitter end of the Civil War, Ebenezer Nelson Gilpin, a Union cavalryman, wrote in his diary, "Everything is chaos here. The suspense is almost unbearable."

"We are reduced to quarter rations and no coffee," he continued. "And nobody can soldier without coffee."

If war is hell, then for many soldiers throughout American history, it is coffee that has offered some small salvation. Hidden Kitchens looks at three American wars through the lens of coffee: the Civil War, Vietnam and Afghanistan.
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MOH Sammy Davis Returns From Vietnam

Veteran whose actions were adapted for ‘Forrest Gump’ returns to Vietnam
WTTV CBS News
By Russ McQuaid
JULY 4, 2016 

"I stood on the exact same piece of dirt that I earned this medal on.  I been waiting to go back for forty years." Sammy L. Davis

OWEN COUNTY, Ind.-- Truth be told, Sammy L. Davis doesn’t remember the last time he left Fire Support Base Cudgel west of Cai Lay in what was then called South Vietnam 48 years ago. Davis was choppered off the battlefield, severely wounded, after a night of war that saved the lives of three fellow Americans, held off an enemy onslaught and resulted in Davis being awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

This Independence Day, the night of November 18, 1967, is once again fresh in Davis’ memory as the Mooresville native has just returned from his first visit back to the riverbank where Hoosier-bred heroics were displayed and lives were changed nearly a half century ago.

“I stood on the exact same piece of dirt that I earned this medal on,” said Davis as he held the honor that hung from a sky blue ribbon around his neck during a recent memorial service. “I been wanting to go back for forty years.

Davis was promoted to sergeant for what he did at Fire Support Base Cudgel. He also received the Medal of Honor, a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts.
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Orphan of Vietnam War Meets Widow of Veteran

Man who was orphaned during Vietnam War meets widow of Vietnam veteran
North West Florida Daily News
By KELLY HUMPHREY
Jul 2, 2016

“I try to express my gratitude to Vietnam vets whenever I have an opportunity. But a lot of people forget about the spouses and everything you went through. I wanted to thank you, too.”
Jason Robertson

Michael Snyder Daily News

Jason Robertson, who was orphaned during the Vietnam War and later adopted by an American family, is seen with veterans rights advocate Karen Biddle in Niceville. At the rear is Robertson's family; wife Debbie, daughter Melanie, son Nathan and daughters Meredith and Naomi.

NICEVILLE — In a fast food restaurant in a town nearly 10,000 miles from where he was born, Jason Robertson sat across the table from a woman he’d never met before.

The Georgia resident was in the area to celebrate the Fourth of July with his in-laws. A few weeks earlier, he and his wife and four children had been in town for Father’s Day. During that visit, Robertson saw something in the Daily News that touched him deeply.

“As I was getting ready to go home, I happened to see the Sunday paper,” Robertson said. “There was a story that had a word that always catches my attention: Vietnam.

The article told the story of Karen Biddle, a Crestview woman whose husband was a Vietnam veteran. After years of struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, William “Grunt” Biddle committed suicide.

“When I picked up the paper and read the whole article, I was just like, ‘Wow.’ ” Robertson said.

“It really touched me because I’m an orphan from the war. I wanted to contact Karen and thank her for her husband’s service. It was men like him who fought for my freedom. I owe them so much.”
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Take Me Home Huey Sculpture At Henry Ford Museum

FOX 2 News

JUN 29 2016

(WJBK) - A Huey helicopter that was turned into an art installation has arrived at the Henry Ford Museum. The helicopter arrived Wednesday morning, escorted by dozens of motorcycles. The 47-foot long sculpture called Take me Home Huey is part of a mission to help those with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Steve Maloney, the artist of the project, says this project brings notice to those who served not only the Vietnam War but all other conflicts, too.
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Remains of Vietnam War MIA Sgt. 1st Class Alan Boyer Buried

Long-missing Missoula soldier finally buried in Virginia
The Associated Press
June 24, 2016

After 48 years, the remains of a long-missing Vietnam War veteran

are being laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

(Photo: AP)

MISSOULA — After 48 years, the remains of a long-missing Vietnam War veteran are being laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

The Missoulian reports that Army Sgt. 1st Class Alan Boyer was buried on Wednesday by his sister, Judi Bouchard, of Florida. Both Bouchard and Boyer moved from Illinois to attend the University of Montana in the 1960s before Boyer left to join the Army.
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More Than 500 Bikes in New Hampshire For Rolling Thunder Freedom Ride

Veterans on motorcycles ride to bring home POWs, MIA soldiers
Rolling Thunder Freedom Ride now in its 23rd year
WMUR News
Kristen Pope
Published Jun 16, 2016

MEREDITH, N.H. —More than 500 people took over the streets of Meredith Thursday in the 23rd Rolling Thunder Freedom Ride.

The annual ride is to show solidarity with prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action.

“You know the old saying: You don’t ever leave anybody behind,” said Vietnam War veteran Claire Starnes. "The mission of the Rolling Thunder is concentrating on bringing back all the POWs and MIAs.”

Starnes is committed to that mission.

“We're going to die or bring them home,” she said. “Even if it’s just the remains. We're going to find them and bring them home.”

It’s easy to marvel over the beautiful, shiny bikes, but the ride is really about people who aren’t here.

“We cover each other,” said veteran Timothy McCarthy. “No matter what happens. We’re all family. It’s another family.”

The ride started at Lowe’s parking lot in Gilford and ended at Hesky Park in Meredith.
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Conscientious Objector To Heroic Action in Vietnam

Vietnam War veteran awarded overdue medals
The Missoulian
MIKE FERGUSON
Jun 2, 2016

BILLINGS – Nearly 50 years after performing the heroic deeds that garnered him medals including the Purple Heart and Bronze Star, Vietnam War medic Gary Booth of Billings finally received what he’d earned Wednesday – with the help of U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.

Tester told a crowd he has awarded overdue medals to more than 900 Montana veterans during his two terms in the senate. Booth’s story – which Tester plans to read into the Congressional Record next week – “is the longest citation I’ve ever done,” he said, “which speaks to what you’ve done in theater.”

Booth, 71, registered as a conscientious objector before being called into army service in 1965. According to the citation, Booth’s unit was ambushed by a battalion four times its size on Feb. 21, 1967.

It was Booth’s job to brave enemy fire and run to wounded American soldiers to stop the bleeding and stabilize them until they could be moved.
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USS Frank E. Evans Families and Survivors Remember

Family of RI sailor lost in Vietnam War fights to have his name listed on wall
Providence Journal
By Donita Naylor
Journal Staff Writer
Posted May. 20, 2016

The dead were not counted as casualties of the Vietnam War, and thus not listed on the wall, because the maneuvers were 127 miles outside the combat zone.

CUMBERLAND, R.I. — A memorial stone was unveiled and a tree dedicated Friday to honor a 20-year-old Cumberland sailor who was among 74 lost at sea in a naval accident in the Vietnam War.

Part of a nationwide effort to get the 74 names added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington, D.C., the stone was placed by veterans, survivors and relatives of the men aboard the USS Frank E. Evans.

The destroyer was cut in half by an Australian aircraft carrier after a series of navigational mistakes in the South China Sea at about 3 a.m. on June 3, 1969. The front half of the ship sank in less than four minutes, and everyone sleeping in the forward section was lost.
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Linked from Stars and Stripes

USS Frank E. Evans May Be Added to Vietnam Wall

Pentagon may add Syracuse vet's son, 73 Navy shipmates to Vietnam Memorial
Syracuse.com
By Mark Weiner
May 12, 2016

"For more than four decades, surviving crew members and relatives of those lost on the USS Frank E. Evans, like Larry Reilly Sr. of Syracuse, have struggled to understand why geographical lines have superseded these sailors' sacrifice and service," Sen. Charles Schumer

World War ll and Vietnam veteran Larry Reilly Sr., age 91, served in the Navy. During the Vietnam War he and his son were together on a Navy ship when it was involved in a collision with an Australian destroyer. His son Larry Reilly Jr. was killed.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Department of Defense has agreed to review a request from families of 74 U.S. Navy sailors, including one with ties to Syracuse, to add their names to the national Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall, according to U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer.

The sailors died aboard the USS Frank E. Evans when the Navy destroyer collided with an Australian aircraft carrier in the South China Sea during a Vietnam War-era training exercise.

The sailors who perished June 3, 1969 are not listed on the Vietnam memorial wall in Washington because the accident happened outside the official combat zone for the Vietnam War.
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Vietnam Veteran Filmmaker "Bravo! Common Men, Uncommon Valor" Earns High Award

Vietnam veteran, filmmaker to receive highest DAR honor
Stars and Stripes
By Matthew M. Burke
Published: April 26, 2016

During the 11-week siege in early 1968, a single surrounded and cut-off Marine regiment of about 5,000 and their supporting forces stood in defiance of three North Vietnamese Army divisions — about 20,000 troops. They were victorious, but only after 27 deaths, with 19 wounded and one taken prisoner.

Retired Marine Ken Rodgers poses during the Vietnam War at Khe Sanh in 1968. Rodgers will receive the Ellen Hardin Walworth Founders Medal for Patriotism, the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution's highest award, May 12 in Boise, Idaho.

COURTESY OF 'BRAVO! COMMON MEN, UNCOMMON VALOR'

A Marine veteran who turned his company’s harrowing tale from the 77-day siege of Khe Sanh during the Vietnam War into a documentary film will be honored with the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution’s highest award.

Ken Rodgers, of Eagle, Idaho, will receive the Ellen Hardin Walworth Founders Medal for Patriotism on May 12 in Boise, the society announced in a statement. The medal honors an adult who has displayed “outstanding patriotism in the promotion of NDSAR’s ideals of God, home and country through faithful and meritorious service to our community, state and nation.”
Rodgers, along with his wife, Betty, directed and co-produced the award-winning film, “Bravo! Common Men, Uncommon Valor.” The film won the best documentary feature prize in 2015 at the GI Film Festival San Diego’s Local Film Showcase.
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Vietnam Veteran Remembers Nong Son Mountain

Vietnam Veteran Considered Guardian Angel 
Rutgers University 
By Robin Lally 
Monday, April 25, 2016

A War Memory

One incident of the war that will always be seared in Taylor’s memory: A lieutenant ordering the troops to fire on a low hill at the enemy. The round came in short, hit directly behind Taylor, killed his assistant gunner and wounded four others. A few months later, the same officer ordered Taylor to fire artillery through what he considered to be friendly villages. Taylor refused. “It was all about morality,” said Taylor who faced being court-martialed for disregarding the order of an officer and cancelling the mission. “It was something I knew I shouldn’t do and that’s all there was to it.”

Photo: Courtesy of Ray Taylor Ray Taylor in Vietnam in 1967.

“I found out many years later that if we hadn’t fired the artillery when we did nobody would have survived the attack,” said Taylor, who was with Bravo Company 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division. Of the 62 troops atop Nong Son, 43 were wounded, 13 were killed and only 12 – including Kuchar – could walk.

It was Ray Taylor’s last patrol in Vietnam, just before midnight on July 3, 1967. The 21-year-old Marine sergeant should have been sleeping, but he was going home in a couple of weeks and felt a little wired.

About a mile and a half away on top of the Nong Son Mountain – the site of the only active coal mine in Vietnam – Marine Corporal John Kuchar was asleep in his bunker when he became involved in the bloodiest battle of his 13-month tour.

Kuchar credits Taylor, a Rutgers University-Newark alumnus, for saving his life. Taylor is among the thousands of Rutgers graduates who have served – and sometimes died – in American military conflicts throughout the university’s nearly 250-year history. He has recorded his experiences as part of the Rutgers Oral History Archives, home to one of the nation’s largest collections of personal accounts.

“If it wasn’t for Ray, I wouldn’t be here,” said Kuchar, a Marine in the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Division, and a buddy for almost 50 years, who met Taylor in 1968 after the two had left Vietnam and enrolled in Union County College. “I’ll always consider him to be my guardian angel.”

Taylor, who graduated from Rutgers University-Newark in 1971 with a degree in economics, arrived in Vietnam on June 14, 1966 after serving one tour in Guantanamo Bay. His jobs ranged from a machine-gunner, scout and sniper, to commander of the recon platoon and liaison at the division headquarters.

On the night of the attack at the mine, Taylor and another Marine in his reconnaissance platoon were sitting on top of an observation hill located on the other side of the Song Thu Bon River. Recon’s job is to be the eyes and ears of larger units, to find the bad guys before sending in the infantry, and going on to their next patrol.
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Truth More Important to Family of MIA Airman

Vietnam War airman's death re-examined after decades of controversy
Stars and Stripes
By Travis J. Tritten
Published: April 11, 2016

“MIA is not closure, though it is better than this travesty that exists in the file to this day,” said his younger brother John Matejov, who is a retired Marine officer. “We shouldn’t have to fight for that.”

WASHINGTON — The Air Force closed the case on Sgt. Joseph Matejov when his surveillance aircraft went down at the end of the Vietnam War.

The missing airman was deemed killed in the fiery crash, and more than two decades later a group gravestone was installed at Arlington National Cemetery. A single casket containing bone fragments recovered in Laos was lowered into the ground at the 1996 funeral for Matejov and seven fellow Air Force crewmembers.

Officially, it was the end of the military’s accounting.

But the funeral did not bury the controversy over the downed aircraft, call sign Baron 52. The case’s long history is riddled with doubts and disagreements within the Pentagon, intelligence community and Congress over whether Matejov died that night in 1973.

Now, the Air Force and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency are re-examining the incident after decades of pressure from Matejov’s family and could change his status from killed to missing in action. A decision could be made within weeks.
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Marine From Destin Florida Robbed in Houston of Everything He Owned

Marine robbed during overnight stay in Houston
KHOU
Rucks Russell
April 08, 2016

He said thieves stole his service uniforms, laptop, television, guns and his late grandfather’s medallion, which he wore around his neck when he served as a Marine in Vietnam.

HOUSTON — Sgt. Kenneth Fuqua of the U.S. Marine Corps is struggling to put his life back together.

“I lost everything, all of my worldly possessions,” he said. 

He showed pictures of his pickup truck showing the flatbed cover smashed open and belongings strewn all over the ground.

The sergeant spoke out as he traveled with his mom from their native California to Destin, Fla., where he will assume a new assignment with the corps.

But along the way, they spent a night at a Houston Marriot in the Galleria. Fuqua said he paid extra to park in the hotel’s secure garage and was stunned by what he found the next morning.
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Ohio VA Clinic Swaps Bible for 'Prop'

This is from Navy Life on what the Bible on the POW MIA Table means.

"The tradition of setting a separate table in honor of our prisoners of war and missing comrades has been in place since the end of the Vietnam War. The manner in which this table is decorated is full of special symbols to help us remember our brothers and sisters in arms."

"The Bible represents faith in a higher power and the pledge to our country, founded as one nation under God." Yet somehow over the years some folks seemed to manage pretty well putting their lives on the line for others they served with but cannot manage to put up with seeing something like this on a table.  Pretty astonishing when you think about it. 

Ohio VA Clinic Swaps Bible for 'Prop' Book After
Complaint
Military.com
by Bryant Jordan
Apr 06, 2016

A Department of Veterans Affairs clinic in Youngstown, Ohio, substituted a "prop" book for a Bible after a civil rights organization accused the facility of endorsing a particular faith by having only the Christian holy book displayed at a table set up to honor American prisoners of war and missing in action.

In a note to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation on Monday, Kristen Parker, chief of external affairs for Cleveland VA Medical Center -- which handles media for the Youngstown clinic -- said the Bible was "replaced with a generic book, one whose symbolism can be individualized by each of our veterans as they pay their respects" to POWs and MIAs.

Parker told Military.com on Tuesday that because the VA cannot endorse, favor or inhibit any specific religion, "we are supporting our local veteran organizations with their decision to use a prop-book on the POW/MIA Table at our Youngstown [clinic]."

Parker previously said the clinic would support the Disabled American Veterans -- the group that set up the table -- in its decision to display the Bible on the missing man table.

The switch was made after the veteran who initiated the complaint, working with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, responded to the clinic's initial refusal to pull the Bible by demanding a separate table be set up with the Jewish Torah and a copy of "The God Delusion," a popular book on atheism. "If in the future I decide to add the Quran, or Mormon book of Latter Day Saints, that is my implied right," retired Army Capt. Jordan Ray wrote.
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