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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 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.
POSTED ON 3.29.2005
POSTED BY: Rolando A. Salazar
He Was One of Ours
POSTED ON 5.26.2002
POSTED BY: CLAY MARSTON
MEMORIAL DEDICATION A TIME TO REFLECT FOR KIN OF VIETNAM WAR DEAD
MEMORIAL DEDICATION A TIME TO REFLECT FOR KIN OF VIETNAM WAR DEAD
NAMES OF COUNTY'S FALLEN 412 TO BE READ AT ROLL CALL
Widows, children and relatives of the young men whose lives ended
violently in Vietnam's mountains and rice paddies have waged quiet
battles for solace and comfort.
Tomorrow, as veterans and families gather to dedicate a black
granite Vietnam War Memorial, Kelly Rihn will read aloud the name
of Joel Daniel Coleman during a roll call of the 412 Allegheny County
men who died in Southeast Asia.
It will not be easy for the 36-year-old mother of two, a personable
woman who so disliked giving oral reports in school that she often
felt nauseous beforehand.
There was a time when Rihn could not speak her father's name
without crying. Since then, she has learned a lot about him and the
war he helped fight. Next March, Rihn will travel to Vietnam and meet
Vietnamese people who lost their fathers in conflict.
Tomorrow, when hundreds gather for the dedication ceremony in the
courtyard of the former Allegheny County Jail, Rihn will have plenty
of support.
Her friend, Toni White of Baldwin Township, will read the name of
Anthony Noah Conti, the father she never knew. White gave birth
April 24 to he first child, Anthony Lyons White.
Rihn and White met five years ago in Washington, D.C., during a
gathering of Sons and Daughters in Touch (SDIT), a national
organization for people whose fathers died in Vietnam. Rihn serves
on the board of the organization, which has over 1,000 members.
Rihn and White have washed the black granite wall at the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial in Washington, which lists 58,226 men and
women who died during the Vietnam War.
White's mother, Lorrie Conti Zanni, 52, of Mount Washington, took
her children to The Wall in 1983.
"That's the only way these kids can touch their fathers or grandfathers.
It's a good thing, The Wall. It's more than just a grave. It's a
community. If you look at the wall, you see yourself. Not only are you
a reflection, but it's almost as if you're inside the granite. I wonder if
those kids get a sense of being inside the granite with their fathers,"
Zanni said.
Now a registered nurse and social worker who grew up in Sheridan,
Zanni said Anthony Conti was a witty man and the youngest of 16
children.
The couple married in February 1968 and enjoyed two months
together before Conti left for Vietnam. On 15 July 1968 Zanni
learned that her 19-year-old husband had died when a land mine
exploded beneath him.
Like Zanni, Susan Coleman-Fowler leaned heavily on her family
after losing Joel Coleman. Her late husband was a good-natured,
easygoing man from Lawrenceville who loved to fish in Highland
Park or at the Monongahela Wharf and drink a beer or two on the
weekends.
"I always felt safe with him. Kelly was just his pride and joy."
Coleman-Fowler was 17 and rocking and feeding Kelly when an
Army officer arrived at her family's Lawrenceville home to say
her husband had died of a gunshot wound to the head on 5 May
1966, during a firefight.
Coleman-Fowler, now a systems analyst at St. Francis Hospital,
recalls a welter of emotions.
"I felt confused and very lonely because I missed him so badly.
I was afraid. Here I am with this little baby. How was I going to
raise her ?"
Zanni has struggled to absorb the loss of her husband, who was
a machine-gunner on an armored personnel carrier.
She lived in a commune on the West Coast, married three more
times and gave birth to a son, Jesse. She worked as a hairdresser
while raising her children, then returned to school to become a
nurse in the mid-1980s.
From 1992 to 1997, Zanni paricipated in a support group at the
Vet Center in downtown Pittsburgh.
Now, she is training to become a yoga instructor.
When the names of local servicemen are read aloud, Don Gorham,
a 52-year-old city narcotics detective from Lawrenceville, will be
there with his brothers, Thomas Gorham of Shaler and William
Gorham of Lawrenceville.
The Gorham brothers all served in Vietnam and returned home.
"You think about it and you thank God for it," Don Gorham said.
by Marylynne Pitz - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Staff Writer
24 May 2002
===================================
JOEL DANIEL COLEMAN
was a posthumous recipient of the
BRONZE STAR MEDAL
PURPLE HEART MEDAL
===================================
Transcribed by
HISTORICAL MILITARIA
BIOGRAPHER OF THE LOST OF THE VIETNAM ERA - 1955 to 1975
NAMES OF COUNTY'S FALLEN 412 TO BE READ AT ROLL CALL
Widows, children and relatives of the young men whose lives ended
violently in Vietnam's mountains and rice paddies have waged quiet
battles for solace and comfort.
Tomorrow, as veterans and families gather to dedicate a black
granite Vietnam War Memorial, Kelly Rihn will read aloud the name
of Joel Daniel Coleman during a roll call of the 412 Allegheny County
men who died in Southeast Asia.
It will not be easy for the 36-year-old mother of two, a personable
woman who so disliked giving oral reports in school that she often
felt nauseous beforehand.
There was a time when Rihn could not speak her father's name
without crying. Since then, she has learned a lot about him and the
war he helped fight. Next March, Rihn will travel to Vietnam and meet
Vietnamese people who lost their fathers in conflict.
Tomorrow, when hundreds gather for the dedication ceremony in the
courtyard of the former Allegheny County Jail, Rihn will have plenty
of support.
Her friend, Toni White of Baldwin Township, will read the name of
Anthony Noah Conti, the father she never knew. White gave birth
April 24 to he first child, Anthony Lyons White.
Rihn and White met five years ago in Washington, D.C., during a
gathering of Sons and Daughters in Touch (SDIT), a national
organization for people whose fathers died in Vietnam. Rihn serves
on the board of the organization, which has over 1,000 members.
Rihn and White have washed the black granite wall at the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial in Washington, which lists 58,226 men and
women who died during the Vietnam War.
White's mother, Lorrie Conti Zanni, 52, of Mount Washington, took
her children to The Wall in 1983.
"That's the only way these kids can touch their fathers or grandfathers.
It's a good thing, The Wall. It's more than just a grave. It's a
community. If you look at the wall, you see yourself. Not only are you
a reflection, but it's almost as if you're inside the granite. I wonder if
those kids get a sense of being inside the granite with their fathers,"
Zanni said.
Now a registered nurse and social worker who grew up in Sheridan,
Zanni said Anthony Conti was a witty man and the youngest of 16
children.
The couple married in February 1968 and enjoyed two months
together before Conti left for Vietnam. On 15 July 1968 Zanni
learned that her 19-year-old husband had died when a land mine
exploded beneath him.
Like Zanni, Susan Coleman-Fowler leaned heavily on her family
after losing Joel Coleman. Her late husband was a good-natured,
easygoing man from Lawrenceville who loved to fish in Highland
Park or at the Monongahela Wharf and drink a beer or two on the
weekends.
"I always felt safe with him. Kelly was just his pride and joy."
Coleman-Fowler was 17 and rocking and feeding Kelly when an
Army officer arrived at her family's Lawrenceville home to say
her husband had died of a gunshot wound to the head on 5 May
1966, during a firefight.
Coleman-Fowler, now a systems analyst at St. Francis Hospital,
recalls a welter of emotions.
"I felt confused and very lonely because I missed him so badly.
I was afraid. Here I am with this little baby. How was I going to
raise her ?"
Zanni has struggled to absorb the loss of her husband, who was
a machine-gunner on an armored personnel carrier.
She lived in a commune on the West Coast, married three more
times and gave birth to a son, Jesse. She worked as a hairdresser
while raising her children, then returned to school to become a
nurse in the mid-1980s.
From 1992 to 1997, Zanni paricipated in a support group at the
Vet Center in downtown Pittsburgh.
Now, she is training to become a yoga instructor.
When the names of local servicemen are read aloud, Don Gorham,
a 52-year-old city narcotics detective from Lawrenceville, will be
there with his brothers, Thomas Gorham of Shaler and William
Gorham of Lawrenceville.
The Gorham brothers all served in Vietnam and returned home.
"You think about it and you thank God for it," Don Gorham said.
by Marylynne Pitz - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Staff Writer
24 May 2002
===================================
JOEL DANIEL COLEMAN
was a posthumous recipient of the
BRONZE STAR MEDAL
PURPLE HEART MEDAL
===================================
Transcribed by
HISTORICAL MILITARIA
BIOGRAPHER OF THE LOST OF THE VIETNAM ERA - 1955 to 1975
POSTED ON 1.3.2002
POSTED BY: Megan & Alyssa Rihn
In Memory of our Grandfather-Joel Coleman
Proud to remember our Pap-Pap. We love you!
Love, Megan and Alyssa
Love, Megan and Alyssa
POSTED ON 1.3.2002
POSTED BY: Kelly Rihn
In Rememberance of Joel D. Coleman
Division 2/7th (Airmobile). I am very proud of
my dad and his service to our country. I love
him and miss him dearly and feel very blessed
and proud to be his daughter.
To honor my father's life and service to his
country- please visit his personal page at
http://www.sdit.org/Coleman.html