Editorial: Add photos to Veterans Memorial Wall of Faces

Monday is Memorial Day, a day for us to reflect on the sacrifices of all those fell during times of service.

Many projects honor those fallen. One is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.

When that wall was completed in 1983, it listed about 58,000 servicemen and women who had either died in action or went missing in action during the Vietnam War.

But because of a fire at a government storage facility in 1973, the military lost millions of personnel records including many of those who were listed on the wall.

In the past few years, thanks to a coordinated effort through the Illinois Press Foundation, nearly 100 photos of Illinois veterans have been added to the Wall of Faces - http://www.vvmf.org/wall-of-faces.

But Illinois still has 533 service members who do not have a photo in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund's database.

The vast majority of them are from Chicago and Cook County, but many are from our area suburbs.

Among them: Richard J. Behrns of Spring Grove; Jimmy C. Bower of Antioch; Steven J. Churchill of Elmhurst; Joseph W. DeRosa of Deerfield; Martin P. Eastham of Fox Lake; Larry D. Ehlers of Algonquin; Roger A. Fessenden of Hanover Park; Howard L. Flament of Wadsworth; Samuel N. Hart of Villa Park; Robert J. Hawks of Antioch; Charles Johnson of Batavia; Jack P. Jones of Mundelein; Richard D. Krupa of Elmhurst; Walter R. Lang of Niles; Erhardt W. Mathiesen of Waukegan; Stephen P. Mitchell of Carpentersville; Stanley D. Montgomery of St. Charles; Charles L. Morrison of Romeoville; Terry A. Patterson of Waukegan; Larry J. Peters of Niles; Roger L. Pierce of Glen Ellyn; Michael W. Prengel of Bensenville; Bobby D. Seay of Waukegan; Timothy J. Sweeney of Romeoville; Allan D. Timmerman of Downers Grove; Michael A. Young of Huntley; and Roger Zimmerman of Deerfield.

The project needs the public's help. Do you know any of these fallen veterans? Or if you're from another area, check http://illinoispress.org/Foundation/WallofFaces.aspx to see if you recognize any names from elsewhere.

Did you go to school or serve with one of them? Check your old photos and yearbooks. Talk to neighbors, friends and former classmates.

Help honor these veterans by putting a face to the name.

If you locate a missing photo of a veteran, submit it to Daily Herald, Senior Visual Editor Jeff Knox, PO Box 280, Arlington Heights, IL 60006. You can email him at jknox@dailyherald.com. We'll get it to the Illinois Press Foundation, which is leading the effort to help collect the Illinois photos.

The photo does not have to be of the service member in uniform. But be sure to include a description of how you know the photo is correct and include contact information in case we have questions.

Thank you for your efforts. We wish you a sacred Memorial Day.