VIEW ALL PHOTOS (4)
HONORED ON PANEL 7E, LINE 29 OF THE WALL
JOEL DANIEL COLEMAN
WALL NAME
JOEL D COLEMAN
PANEL / LINE
7E/29
DATE OF BIRTH
CASUALTY PROVINCE
DATE OF CASUALTY
HOME OF RECORD
COUNTY OF RECORD
STATE
BRANCH OF SERVICE
RANK
REMEMBRANCES
LEFT FOR JOEL DANIEL COLEMAN
POSTED ON 2.25.2012
For SP4 Joel Daniel COLEMAN, USA...another of Pittsburgh's bravest of heroes, who gave his life!!!!!
He loved us so.
Every day, in a hundred ways, he told us so.
In honesty, in affection, he told us so.
He loved us so.
Every day, in a hundred ways, he showed us so.
With loyalty and bravery, he showed us so.
He was our defender, and he kept us free!
He took an oath to guard us, and fought for liberty!
He loved us so, and we should know.
For we loved him so.
Specialist Coleman, your sacrifice was NOT in vain. Our flag still flies over our land, and we are still a free and strong country.
You served us valiantly and faithfully, for we are free today due to your bravery and courage! You have given all that mortality can give! Your name and fame are the birthright of EVERY American citizen! I believe that Jill Corey, whom Avonmore (her home town) and Pittsburgh (where she got her start) can claim as one of their own, and whom I greatly admire as one of my three top favorite songbirds, among them Julie Andrews, who comes from England, and Dusty Springfield, also from England, but she passed on some years before, would be very proud of your service to our America! Well done, Soldier! Be thou at peace.
Every day, in a hundred ways, he told us so.
In honesty, in affection, he told us so.
He loved us so.
Every day, in a hundred ways, he showed us so.
With loyalty and bravery, he showed us so.
He was our defender, and he kept us free!
He took an oath to guard us, and fought for liberty!
He loved us so, and we should know.
For we loved him so.
Specialist Coleman, your sacrifice was NOT in vain. Our flag still flies over our land, and we are still a free and strong country.
You served us valiantly and faithfully, for we are free today due to your bravery and courage! You have given all that mortality can give! Your name and fame are the birthright of EVERY American citizen! I believe that Jill Corey, whom Avonmore (her home town) and Pittsburgh (where she got her start) can claim as one of their own, and whom I greatly admire as one of my three top favorite songbirds, among them Julie Andrews, who comes from England, and Dusty Springfield, also from England, but she passed on some years before, would be very proud of your service to our America! Well done, Soldier! Be thou at peace.
POSTED ON 1.12.2011
POSTED BY: Robert Sage
We Remember
Joel is buried at Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburg,Allegheny County,PA.
POSTED ON 11.11.2009
POSTED BY: Susan Coleman
Always In My Heart
Never a day goes by that I don't miss you....You are "always in my heart"
POSTED ON 4.30.2009
POSTED BY: Carol Haberchak
Always Remembered
I will never forget the sacrifices made by all of the Vietnam soldiers and will keep all of you in my heart until my last day on earth.
Your journey on earth ended too soon, but you will have everlasting life in heaven.
Thank you for your bravery and courage.
Rest in peace dear soldier.
Your journey on earth ended too soon, but you will have everlasting life in heaven.
Thank you for your bravery and courage.
Rest in peace dear soldier.
POSTED ON 11.9.2007
POSTED BY: Jeremy Mayfield
58,256 Names Pierce Silence at Wall
The following article, honoring three names on the Wall (Harry Griffith Cramer, Joel Daniel Coleman, and Donald Vernon McGregor), appeared in the 8 November 2007 online edition of The Washington Post:
58,256 Names Pierce Silence at the Wall
By William Wan - Washington Post
November 8, 2007
He was given his father's name at birth. Harry Griffith Cramer III, his birth certificate reads, the son of Harry Griffith Cramer Jr.
The name has stayed with him in a way his father couldn't. It has shaped and molded his life, guiding him through difficult times and giving him strength in moments of weakness. It is one of the few things he has left of his father, so he cherishes every letter of it.
Yesterday, he shared that name with hundreds of people gathered on the Mall, reading it aloud, deliberately and poignantly. And his was just the beginning.
Like a dam unleashed, the names poured forth yesterday at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial -- names of all the deceased and missing service members, set in the black granite panels -- one after another.
Family members and volunteers began reading the 58,256 names yesterday afternoon and were to continue until midnight in observance of the 25th anniversary of the Wall. The reading was to resume at 5 this morning and continue until late Saturday evening, with almost 2,000 volunteers taking turns.
As the son of the first Army soldier killed in Vietnam, Hank Cramer was chosen to be yesterday's first reader. He came an hour early to compose his thoughts beneath his father's name at Panel 1, Line 78.
"HARRY G. CRAMER JR."
He was 4 when his father died and has only a few memories of him -- 30-second clips that have circled in his mind for much of his life: His father singing a cowboy song. Going for rides on his father's back. Tussling with him on the floor.
And then this scene: his mother explaining why an army chaplain had knocked on their door.
Throughout his childhood, his mother, a schoolteacher, tried to teach him what his father's death meant. She saved the uniforms and medals and the letters her husband wrote from Korea and Vietnam. On Memorial Day and Veterans Day, she took her son to his father's grave at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and to give him context, they visited the graves of the academy's most famous graduates. This was who your father was -- a soldier's soldier, she told him.
So Hank Cramer set out to be the same. In college, he, too, signed up with the Army and eventually joined the same Green Beret unit in which his father had served, 1st Special Forces Group in Washington state.
In 1982, when he heard that a memorial had been built to honor the sacrifices of U.S. troops in Vietnam, he flew in to pay his respects, only to find his father's name missing. For political reasons, he discovered, the military had decided that war deaths of service members had not officially begun in Vietnam until 1959. His father had died Oct. 21, 1957.
He waged a campaign to have those few extra letters chiseled on the Wall, and succeeded a year later. The name was everything he had left, he said. He visits the memorial at least every other year.
"It's a powerful feeling to look at your reflection in the Wall and touch that name," said Cramer, 54. "It's good for my soul to touch that name and tell him I'm trying to live up to it."
He did so again yesterday shortly before the ceremony began, preparing himself to honor his father's name once more. Then he read it. And the list went on.
"JOEL D. COLEMAN"
Kelly Coleman-Rihn was 7 months old when her father was killed, a 21-year-old member of the 1st Cavalry Division 2/7th (Airmobile).
Her mother remarried and changed her last name. Vietnam was rarely mentioned.
When she was 21, Coleman-Rihn began digging into her father's history.
"For the longest time, I hadn't been able to talk about it," she said. "People asked me, 'How can you miss someone you never had?' But that's exactly it. I never had him; that's what I missed the most."
She found a group, Sons and Daughters in Touch, for children of those killed or missing in Vietnam. On Father's Day in 1993, she drove from her home in the Pittsburgh area to meet with group members in Washington, hoping to talk with others about her father.
"But I couldn't even say my dad's name without crying hysterically," said Rihn, 42.
With each new piece of information she has found about him, the importance and meaning of his name has grown. A few months ago, she met a man who told her how her father died, in a surprise attack by a North Vietnamese platoon.
"Me saying his name, it's a way to keep his memory alive," she said. "There's always going to be that hole in your heart, but learning and passing on that knowledge, it helps."
"DONALD V. McGREGOR"
Terry McGregor would rather not have to read the name at all.
"It's a difficult thing and an unfortunate situation," said McGregor, 50. "I'd rather have my dad be here, but since he's not, this is something we do for him."
A few years ago, he participated in one of the three other times the names on the Wall have been read in their entirety.
"It's a powerful thing to read your father's name, with all that it means to you," he said, "and then to hear all the names that follow and realize that each one represents something similar to someone else."
He brought his son to yesterday's reading, both arriving on a red-eye flight from California. Each of them read a full page, about 30 names in all, pausing slightly after each. Then, they stepped aside and let the next person take over, calling out name after name until long after the sky grew dark.
58,256 Names Pierce Silence at the Wall
By William Wan - Washington Post
November 8, 2007
He was given his father's name at birth. Harry Griffith Cramer III, his birth certificate reads, the son of Harry Griffith Cramer Jr.
The name has stayed with him in a way his father couldn't. It has shaped and molded his life, guiding him through difficult times and giving him strength in moments of weakness. It is one of the few things he has left of his father, so he cherishes every letter of it.
Yesterday, he shared that name with hundreds of people gathered on the Mall, reading it aloud, deliberately and poignantly. And his was just the beginning.
Like a dam unleashed, the names poured forth yesterday at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial -- names of all the deceased and missing service members, set in the black granite panels -- one after another.
Family members and volunteers began reading the 58,256 names yesterday afternoon and were to continue until midnight in observance of the 25th anniversary of the Wall. The reading was to resume at 5 this morning and continue until late Saturday evening, with almost 2,000 volunteers taking turns.
As the son of the first Army soldier killed in Vietnam, Hank Cramer was chosen to be yesterday's first reader. He came an hour early to compose his thoughts beneath his father's name at Panel 1, Line 78.
"HARRY G. CRAMER JR."
He was 4 when his father died and has only a few memories of him -- 30-second clips that have circled in his mind for much of his life: His father singing a cowboy song. Going for rides on his father's back. Tussling with him on the floor.
And then this scene: his mother explaining why an army chaplain had knocked on their door.
Throughout his childhood, his mother, a schoolteacher, tried to teach him what his father's death meant. She saved the uniforms and medals and the letters her husband wrote from Korea and Vietnam. On Memorial Day and Veterans Day, she took her son to his father's grave at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and to give him context, they visited the graves of the academy's most famous graduates. This was who your father was -- a soldier's soldier, she told him.
So Hank Cramer set out to be the same. In college, he, too, signed up with the Army and eventually joined the same Green Beret unit in which his father had served, 1st Special Forces Group in Washington state.
In 1982, when he heard that a memorial had been built to honor the sacrifices of U.S. troops in Vietnam, he flew in to pay his respects, only to find his father's name missing. For political reasons, he discovered, the military had decided that war deaths of service members had not officially begun in Vietnam until 1959. His father had died Oct. 21, 1957.
He waged a campaign to have those few extra letters chiseled on the Wall, and succeeded a year later. The name was everything he had left, he said. He visits the memorial at least every other year.
"It's a powerful feeling to look at your reflection in the Wall and touch that name," said Cramer, 54. "It's good for my soul to touch that name and tell him I'm trying to live up to it."
He did so again yesterday shortly before the ceremony began, preparing himself to honor his father's name once more. Then he read it. And the list went on.
"JOEL D. COLEMAN"
Kelly Coleman-Rihn was 7 months old when her father was killed, a 21-year-old member of the 1st Cavalry Division 2/7th (Airmobile).
Her mother remarried and changed her last name. Vietnam was rarely mentioned.
When she was 21, Coleman-Rihn began digging into her father's history.
"For the longest time, I hadn't been able to talk about it," she said. "People asked me, 'How can you miss someone you never had?' But that's exactly it. I never had him; that's what I missed the most."
She found a group, Sons and Daughters in Touch, for children of those killed or missing in Vietnam. On Father's Day in 1993, she drove from her home in the Pittsburgh area to meet with group members in Washington, hoping to talk with others about her father.
"But I couldn't even say my dad's name without crying hysterically," said Rihn, 42.
With each new piece of information she has found about him, the importance and meaning of his name has grown. A few months ago, she met a man who told her how her father died, in a surprise attack by a North Vietnamese platoon.
"Me saying his name, it's a way to keep his memory alive," she said. "There's always going to be that hole in your heart, but learning and passing on that knowledge, it helps."
"DONALD V. McGREGOR"
Terry McGregor would rather not have to read the name at all.
"It's a difficult thing and an unfortunate situation," said McGregor, 50. "I'd rather have my dad be here, but since he's not, this is something we do for him."
A few years ago, he participated in one of the three other times the names on the Wall have been read in their entirety.
"It's a powerful thing to read your father's name, with all that it means to you," he said, "and then to hear all the names that follow and realize that each one represents something similar to someone else."
He brought his son to yesterday's reading, both arriving on a red-eye flight from California. Each of them read a full page, about 30 names in all, pausing slightly after each. Then, they stepped aside and let the next person take over, calling out name after name until long after the sky grew dark.