TIM TETZ: [00:00:05] And this goes back to 2015, I think probably.

HOST: [00:00:11] That’s Tim Tetz, VVMF’s Director of Outreach. Tim oversees several of our programs, including The Wall That Heals.

TIM TETZ: [00:00:20] We’re in Marco Island, Florida. And I had a much older gentleman come up to me and ask if I could help find a name. He gave me the name, and I typed it into my phone and took a look at it, and we started walking towards The Wall. And as I always do, I asked them how they how he knew this young man’s name, and he said, oh well, he’s my son. And we got right up to The Wall and I, I showed him the his son’s name and he broke down in tears. His daughter kind of patted him on the shoulder and tried to comfort him. But then I said, you know, if you’d like, we have some photos of him. You explained a little bit about the Wall of Faces. I said, would you like to see them? And he said, oh my gosh, I’d love to see them. I’ve never seen a photo of him. And I was struck by that thought, and I showed him the photos. And daughter quickly took care of the conversation because he broke down in tears and started sobbing in a way that makes everyone around sob. And and she said, “Daddy, he looks just like you. I can’t believe that.” He had never known that he had had this son, that he was somewhere here and had fathered this child, and the mother had reached out to him a couple of months before we were there and had told them, told him, by the way, we had a son. And he wanted, of course, to meet his son, and she informed him that he had been killed and his name was on The Wall. And, uh, he happened to shortly after learning that news. See that we were coming to Marco Island with The Wall. Little did he know that he’d ever get to see a picture of him, because for whatever reason, the mother didn’t have any photographs or didn’t provide them to him, so he had never seen a picture of him. And, you know, he went home, obviously a changed man for a lot of reasons.

HOST: [00:02:52] There are 58,281 names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. In 2001, we set out to find at least one good photograph for each of those names. Why? Because, as you just heard, putting a face with the name can make a colossal difference. Completing The Wall of Faces took more than two decades of sustained effort by thousands of volunteers around the world. In this episode, you’ll hear the story of two of them: a Vietnam veteran and his steel magnolia of a wife, Steve and Annie Delp are just two among thousands of people who have made moments like the one on Marco Island possible, but their story sheds some light on why this project was so important to so many people. Stick around. From the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Founders of The Wall. This is Echoes of the Vietnam War. I’m your host, Michael Croan, bringing you stories of service, sacrifice, and healing from people who still feel the impact of that conflict… Nearly 50 years later. This is Episode 39: Every Picture Tells a Story.

STEVE DELP: [00:04:35] Well, we came from a family that were Pennsylvania Dutch.

HOST: [00:04:40] Steve Delp and his brother grew up in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and while they didn’t come from a military background, both boys ended up joining the military. Steve’s path took him through Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

STEVE DELP: [00:04:54] The only reason I started off in the military was at Dickinson as a freshman, um, I was told that I would get a zero credit, uh, for joining the gym or two credits, two hours credit for being in the ROTC, which is what got me started.

HOST: [00:05:22] Steve graduated in June of 1963 with a degree in political science and economics. He also received his commission, and in September of that year he went to Fort Belvoir to train as an engineer. After that he was stationed at Fort Hood, where he thought he would probably complete his two year commitment as a reserve officer on active duty. But Uncle Sam dangled a new carrot, which actually turned out to be a pineapple.

STEVE DELP: [00:05:50] As I was getting close to finishing my two-year commitment to the military, we were interviewed. We, all of the young lieutenants in the 16th Engineers, were interviewed by a military intelligence team, uh, who were looking for engineers to do targeting on North Vietnam, um, from an engineer standpoint… What made sense. And, uh, we all sort of looked at each other as if, gee, I don’t know anything about this. And, uh, they said, oh, by the way, uh, your assignment would be at Fort Shafter, Hawaii. Oh, that makes a difference. Uh, so a group of us. Yeah, joined up and, uh, and off we went to, uh, to Fort Hood. So, yes, I was still an engineer, but a learning about intelligence, which got me very interested.

HOST: [00:06:54] In Hawaii, steve learned to surf while his interest in military intelligence continued to grow. He was promoted to captain, and after a couple of years at Fort Shafter, he received orders for Vietnam.

STEVE DELP: [00:07:06] As I was being, uh, ordered to go to Vietnam. I had put in paperwork to go for a regular Army commission, uh, in intelligence and and off it went, and off I went, uh, to, uh, to Vietnam. It was, uh, in January of ’68.

HOST: [00:07:31] That’s a hell of a time to arrive in Vietnam, January of ’68.

STEVE DELP: [00:07:35] Uh, yes. And particularly when, uh, when I got there, I was told that the reason I was sent to the Fourth Division was that they needed a bridge company commander, and they knew that I had been with the bridge company at, uh, at Fort Hood. And that was about two-and-a-half to three weeks before Tet. Got one, one bridge in and out, uh, outside of Kontum. We were told to move out and get back in a hurry. And, uh, that was because they had suspected something was going to happen. Which turned out, of course, to be Tet.

HOST: [00:08:22] The clip that follows comes from an oral history interview that Steve gave for the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress American Folklife Center.

STEVE DELP: [00:08:32] About 7:00 that night. In came a bunch of helicopters, and they kicked out coffee, and ammunition, and ammunition, and ammunition. And I said, something’s going on here. Uh, nothing happened. And we made it into Kontum. Then the next day, and then down to Pleiku the next day. I immediately told the guys, go ahead and, you know, unload your stuff. Uh, get yourself ready to go get some good food in you… And I went down to Fourth Division headquarters, where a buddy of mine was in the G-2 shop, and I said, Bob, I said, what the hell is going on? Well, why did we get what we got? He said, I can’t tell you, but something’s happening. Uh, you probably ought to be prepared to get your weapons and forget the bridge for a while. And we switched from engineer to infantry and went into Pleiku City, uh, on the 31st. We were engineers that quit being engineers and picked up rifles and machine guns and mortars and went into Pleiku and fought as infantry, but we were still engineers.

HOST: [00:09:50] After about a week and a half of fighting, Steve and his unit went back to engineering. But building bridges in the middle of a war isn’t the safest of jobs, as Steve describes in his oral history interview.

STEVE DELP: [00:10:03] We got ambushed a couple of times on the road, so we ended up doing some shooting there. Mhm. Uh, we were bringing a bulldozer back from Ben Het Special Forces Camp to Dak To. I left, uh, Echo Company and moved to Alpha Company, which was the straight leg engineers up at Dak To. Uh, and that would have been in March of ’68. Mhm. We were bringing a bulldozer back from Ben Het to, to, to Dak To base and we got ambushed. Mhm. And fortunately uh, we had some uh, uh, cavalry guys with us, and we were able to get all the engineers off of our vehicles, um, and moved moved the vehicles that were movable out of the area, and they gave us cover. Um, and I jumped into an armored personnel carrier, uh, and turned around, and there was the guy on the bulldozer, and he was fighting. He wasn’t going to give it up. And so we ran out and helped him fight off the people that were there and told him, get your butt over here. You know, the bulldozer can can wait. Don’t worry about it. And sure enough, uh, a minute or two later, a guy threw a satchel charge onto it and blew the, the vehicle up, the bulldozer.

HOST: [00:11:27] What do you remember most vividly about the time you spent in Vietnam?

STEVE DELP: [00:11:33] Well, um, of course, Tet, uh, that that’s the one thing that will never leave me. Um. And, and then, uh, it was and and being up at Dak To, uh, up in what, what really became combat, um… Blowing mines, uh, doing minesweeping on roads, working with the Special Forces, uh, and, and and all that was, was great. And, hey, I’m out of the engineers now. Uh, and time to move on. And that next six months, uh, at division headquarters, uh, sitting in an operation center and watching the commanding general and his assistants certainly became, uh… Wow. Uh, I see how things happen around major operations.

HOST: [00:12:40] Like so many of the men and women who served in Vietnam, Steve came home to a welcome that was less than warm.

STEVE DELP: [00:12:48] Landed at an Air Force base up in, uh, up in Washington… State and came down to, uh, to, uh, San Francisco to fly back to, uh, to the East Coast. And it was late at night waiting for an early morning flight. We were just sitting there, I think probably having a beer. And a fight broke out, and I got involved in trying to break up the fight, and I was spit on in my face by a young girl. Well, I pushed out of the way, uh, and went back and sat down, and I was really upset.

HOST: [00:13:58] Clarissa Ann Schneidewind, known affectionately as Annie, is an Army brat, the daughter of a World War II veteran. She fell in love with horses as a young girl when her father was stationed in Salzburg, Austria as a cavalry trainer. That love would stick with her for life. Annie’s father is buried in Arlington National Cemetery and as an adult, and he served as a volunteer there for many years. The devoted daughter of an Army veteran would eventually become the devoted wife of another Army veteran, Steve Delp. Together, the Delps would travel far and wide in search of photos for the Wall of Faces that part of the story. After a short break. Stick around.

HOST: [00:15:09] For so many people, visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. is just not an option. That’s exactly why VVMF created The Wall That Heals, an exact replica of The Wall at three-quarter scale that travels to communities all across America. The Wall That Heals and the Mobile Education Center that travels with it will be in Anahuac, Texas, October 27th through 30, and San Antonio, Texas, November 3 through 6, and Cabot, Arizona, November 10th through 13th. And that concludes this year’s tour. We expect to have next year’s tour dates and locations to share with you sometime in December. In the meantime, you can learn how to bring The Wall That Heals to your town by visiting vvmf.org.

HOST: [00:15:58] For 40 years, VVMF has led the way to help heal our nation. Remember those who gave all and honor all who served. Our Legacy Endowment will ensure that we can continue honoring Vietnam veterans for the next 40 years and beyond. We launched the Legacy Endowment with a $500,000 matching gift campaign, the Legacy Challenge. Each new outright gift or gift established through a will, will be matched up to 50 percent, with a maximum of $50,000 matched per gift. All qualifying gifts established or newly identified before November 12th of this year are eligible for the match. Learn more at vvmf.org/legacy. By now, you know that this year we’re celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. And to commemorate this milestone, every day at 3 p.m. eastern, we read the name of each Wall honoree who died on that date. This is in addition to the live, in-person reading of the names that will be held in Washington, DC beginning on November 7th. You can visit vvmf.org/rotn for more information about the daily virtual reading of the names and about the in-person event.

HOST: [00:17:23] Steve Delp came home from Vietnam and went on to complete a 26-year career in Army Intelligence. By the time he retired in 1989 at the rank of colonel, he had served at the State Department as a Korea specialist, bouncing back and forth between D.C. and the embassy in Seoul. When the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in 1982, Steve was in Korea. He wouldn’t see The Wall for a few years, but that didn’t keep him from forming an opinion about it.

STEVE DELP: [00:17:51] Um, it was black. It was down. Uh, it didn’t talk about, uh, the rest of us. It was just the ones who were killed, and I wasn’t real…. I was trying to figure it out, what I thought about it. My next assignment out of Seoul was to State Department, but I was a runner. And I would come out the front door of the State Department down the hill. And what was the first thing that I would come up on? The Wall. It didn’t take long for me to change my mind as to what The Wall was, and what it was all about, as I, as I witnessed lots of people, lots of people, going to The Wall with their hands up on names. Crying, being, being supported by other guys, other gals or wives and so forth. And it didn’t take long for me to say, you know, you were wrong. This is a really good thing that they’ve got here. My view, anymore, that The Wall is such a wonderful place, and, uh, it kicked me in the butt, for me to finally switch around and fall in love with it, which I should have done to begin with.

HOST: [00:19:42] Steve went on to a second career, this time in the private sector, putting his career expertise to work for a series of defense contractors. His years in Seoul had left him with a great many mementos, some of which were suitable for framing. One day he walked into a DC frame shop and there, working at the counter, was Annie. They were married in 1994. After Steve retired the second time, he and Annie operated a horse rescue farm in Culpeper, Virginia. Their other shared passion was staying involved with the various veterans organizations they both supported, one of which was the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. By 2012, the couple had become energetic volunteers for the Wall of Faces project. Here’s CEO Jim Knotts.

JIM KNOTTS: [00:20:43] They would go to military unit reunions and set up a booth there, encouraging people to provide photos of those that we were missing. Uh, they would do this on the weekends. They would drive six states away. Um, I mean, they were just truly committed to this project to be able to put a face to every name.

HOST: [00:21:06] Director of outreach Tim Tetz:

TIM TETZ: [00:21:09] We had a number of teammates of mine who would go out and do events, and I would go out and do events as well, and sometimes I’d get to go with each of them. The great thing about Steve and and Annie, it was one part her southern hospitality and another part their identification with the generation. Steve could walk into a room and have a different sense of validation, because he would not only be a Vietnam veteran like that, but he brought things with him that tied that to home. So, for example, he brought in a Vietnam footlocker, and that was what he used to carry materials around in. He brought in a pair of jungle boots that he used to gather business cards and such. And those things in and of themselves would beget stories and attention in ways that, you know, sitting in a suit, in a conference room with a bunch of other exhibitors wouldn’t gather, so, the validity that Steve brought to it, along with his passion that he had.

JIM KNOTTS: [00:22:15] Certainly for her as a military spouse, um, she was very aware of the losses and how important it is for those families to be able to deal with those losses. And this was a way that she could help with that.

TIM TETZ: [00:22:32] He brought Annie, and Annie fell in love with all the boys that they met. Annie got to see that validation of what they were doing, and and it became Annie’s mission.

HOST: [00:22:44] Reasonable people can disagree about who was Batman and who was Robin on this mission, but no one can argue about their results. Over the course of several years, the couple made a significant contribution toward completing The Wall of Faces.

STEVE DELP: [00:22:59] Well, it clearly was in the thousands. I’m sure we kicked in a few thousand.

JIM KNOTTS: [00:23:06] One of the things Steve was doing for us was he was going out to these conferences, and they were getting the photos, and he would bring them back. And he was helping from time to time, uh, review them as they were submitted to the website and do some approval of them.

HOST: [00:23:21] The experience and expertise that Steve had developed as a volunteer would prove indispensable. When the VVMF staff member, who was responsible for the review and approval of photos for The Wall of Faces, moved into a different position.

JIM KNOTTS: [00:23:35] And so we had no one with the expertise or the experience, uh, that could dedicate their time to reviewing and approving the photos, like Steve. And so we actually asked him to set aside his volunteer status and actually come on as a paid staff member to be able to continue that project. And he was happy to do it.

HOST: [00:24:08] Earlier this year, VVMF announced Mission Accomplished. We had at least one photograph for every name on The Wall. It took 21 years, an army of volunteers and countless man hours. But the memory of each fallen service member is now illustrated by a face. But the enrichment of those memories comes with a bitter irony. Annie Delp was stricken by dementia and has lived for the past two years in a memory care facility. It isn’t clear whether she really knows that the goal she worked toward for ten years is finally done. But if she could react to the news, Steve knows what she would say.

STEVE DELP: [00:24:50] Oh, if she had the ability, she would, she would say, “we kicked in and we helped.” Uh, and I think that that would have been about it. I did take, uh, the sheet, the Mission Accomplished, that we got and made a copy of it and took it into her. And as I go in to see her every day or so, um, it’s there, it’s it’s taken care of… She hasn’t gotten rid of it, that’s for sure. I have sold the horse farm, although I’m still living here… That was the deal I made with the Central Virginia Horse Rescue, who bought it. Uh, I will be able to live here on the farm for the rest of my life. Uh, if we can get Annie out, she’ll come in here, too. Um, but it is working with The Wall of Faces, uh, on a, almost, on a daily basis. But then going in to see Miss Annie, uh, on a on a day-to-day basis. And I’m still about 18 miles from town, so, uh, uh, it takes me a while.

HOST: [00:26:30] You’re probably asking yourself, why is Steve still working on the Wall of Faces? I mean, the mission is accomplished, right? Well, for Steve, simply completing the mission isn’t good enough. You see, some of the photos that we have aren’t that great. So Steve has dedicated himself to making every profile on The Wall of Faces as good as it can be.

TIM TETZ: [00:26:54] When you think back to that story from Florida and you think back to the fact that those photos that that father got to see for the first time were the only photos that he’d ever seen. The photos that we want to have on The Wall of Faces of the photos that you would be proud to put on your mantle, and half of the photos that are on The Wall of Faces don’t reach that level quite yet.

JIM KNOTTS: [00:27:24] Steve’s enthusiasm for the next phase of this project really is an indication of just how important this project is to him, and how much he himself is probably been changed as he’s interacted with these veterans and families in the process of collecting photos and posting them. Um, it shows his energy and his commitment.

HOST: [00:27:51] That energy and that commitment are shared by the many, many volunteers who have helped and continue to help with The Wall of Faces project. If you’d like to join them, go to vvmf.org/wall-of-faces and have a look around. Search for names you know. If you have a photo better than the ones we have on file, submit it. And most importantly, tell a friend or two who might be in a position to help.

HOST: [00:28:28] We’ve got three more episodes for you this year and they are going to be barn burners… I can’t wait, I can’t wait to share them with you.

HOST: [00:28:38] We’ll be back in two weeks with more stories of service, sacrifice and healing. We’ll see you then.

Full Interview with Steve Delp

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