Document text
Honoring the fallen, seeking a change Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell Sandra Zito, left, and her sister, Linda Moreau, visit the Vietnam War Memorial in Medford�s Veterans Park to honor their brother, Mickey Allen Wilson, whose helicopter was shot down in 1973. Women weren�t notified of ex-MIA brother�s burial By Paul Fattig For two Medford sisters, national POW/MIA Recognition Day is a time for tribute and a time for change. On Friday, Linda Moreau and Sandra Zito will pause and pay respect for their brother, pilot Mickey Allen Wilson, who was listed as missing in action when his helicopter was shot down in Vietnam on Jan. 8, 1973. And they will work toward changing the way the U.S. government notifies next of kin in MIA and POW cases. "It may have been 28 years since it happened, but it seems like yesterday to us," said Moreau, 50. "When you look at Mickey�s picture, he�s still 24. He never ages." Tribute to MIAs, POWs A ceremony for Oregonians missing in action and former prisoners of war will be held Friday at the Department of Veterans Affairs Domiciliary. The ceremony begins at 11 a.m. in the facility�s theater. The recognition day is held on the third Friday of each September. "Most of our veterans didn�t want to be in Vietnam," said Zito, 48. "They went over there because their country sent them. We can�t walk off and forget them." It wasn�t until late this summer that they learned via the Internet that their brother�s remains had been buried April 14 in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Only their elderly parents, who live in Washington state, were notified and attended. Their parents had not elected to notify other family members of the ceremony. "We respect the fact our parents wanted their privacy, but we still wanted to be there," Moreau said. "We needed the healing, the closure." In the future, the sisters hope that Uncle Sam will, when the parents are elderly, also notify the adult siblings. A younger brother, Jack Wilson, who lives in California, had not been told about the ceremony, either. A spokesman at the U.S. Army�s MIA/POW Affairs office explained that the current law requires the military to notify only the primary next of kin. That includes parents or, if married, the spouse, he said. If the parents are deceased and the veteran is not married, the primary next of kin would be the oldest sibling, he said. There were 3,307 American servicemen missing in action at the end of the Vietnam War. Of those, 2,008 remain unaccounted for, according to the POW/MIA Affairs office. Wilson was listed as an unaccounted-for MIA until his remains were found in 1996, officials report. A UH-1H Huey helicopter pilot, he and five others were shot down near Quang Tri just 23 days before the Paris Accords were signed, marking the end of American participation in the war. His remains were positively identified last October at the Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, making him one of 1,299 MIAs accounted for, according to the government. Yet he was never a statistic to his family. His cousins in the San Francisco Bay area kept a bottle of wine in their refrigerator for 12 years, waiting for the day he would return home alive, the sisters said. Moreau also spent five years tracking down information about her brother. The family knew he had married a Vietnamese woman named Mary on Dec. 7, 1972, with whom he had a baby son. But Wilson�s widow and son disappeared in the mass confusion at the end of the war. She eventually tracked down her sister-in-law, who now lives in Tennessee. Moreau�s book, "Danang to Memphis," published early this year, relates the remarkable tale. Last week, Moreau received a telephone call from a veteran in Connecticut who had just read her book. He had served with their brother in the military. "Mickey touched many lives, not just ours," Zito said. "There are numerous friends of Mickey�s as well as members of the family who wanted to be there. They would have been there in an instant to honor Mickey had we been allowed to know about it. We all had the right." Her sister agreed. "It wasn�t just Mickey I wanted to honor and say goodbye to," Moreau said. "It was also Bush, Deane, Stinson, Knutson and Lauterio." Elbert W. Bush, William L. Deane, William S. Stinson, Richard A. Knutson and Manuel A. Lauterio were the other soldiers aboard the aircraft that day. Zito was at her parents� home in 1996 when they were notified that his remains had been found. "They were completely devastated," she said. "I was there because I had asked Dad if I could be there. They didn�t ask any questions or look at the report. It was too painful for them." It was just as painful to be notified of their brother�s funeral ceremony by Internet after the fact, Moreau said. "I was looking on the Internet and here�s a story about our brother being buried at Arlington," Moreau said. "To find that out after all we had gone through in the last five years � the heartaches, the pain, the happiness � was very difficult." They hope the federal government will hold another ceremony for immediate family members who had not been notified. "We want another service for Mickey," Zito said. "We want the opportunity for everyone who wants to, to be there. We want closure." "I�m very patriotic," Moreau added. "The sight of an American flag still makes chills go up my spine. That�s just the way we were raised." Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA