Woman seeks photos of Tenn. Vietnam casualties - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Woman seeks photos of Tenn. Vietnam casualties

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — A White Bluff woman is trying to gather photographs of the more than 1,300 Tennesseans who died in the Vietnam War.

The effort is part of the “Put a Face with a Name” project of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which maintains a virtual memorial wall on its Web site.

The Johnson City Press reports Judy Gorman King approached the paper for help finding the photographs of about 45 people listed as having lived in Washington County.

A recent check of those names on the virtual wall Web site found photographs posted for only four of them. Two were soldiers — Nilon Kay Bacon of Fall Branch and Eugene Delano Franklin of Johnson City — and two were Marines — James David Bowers and Andrew Martin, both of Johnson City.

“I want to make sure nobody slips through the cracks,” King said.

King is a poet who whose visits to the memorial wall in Washington, D.C., have inspired several of her verses. She has a brother who served three tours in Vietnam. He survived.

“I am so thankful for that,” she said.

She has contacted historical societies in each county in the state as well as several newspapers. She has also received help from the veterans group Rolling Thunder. Some have sent photos from high school yearbooks.

King says she can use actual photographs or their digital copies.

King has found photographs for about a third of the Tennesseans who died in Vietnam.

King says she realizes that digging up old photographs can also dig up painful memories for some families, but she believes in the project.

“When I get done I will put copies of all the photos in the Tennessee State Library and Archives,” King said.