Work on virtual wall to remember Vietnam vets continues

EVERETT — Cheri Joseph’s brother once told her he was willing to die for his country.

The Vietnam War was raging and Tony Warner, a recent Meadowdale High School student, decided to enlist in the Marine Corps. He visited his sister after completing boot camp at Fort Pendleton, California.

“That’s when he told me he really liked what he was doing, that he felt that America was the only country that could get rid of Communism in Vietnam,” Joseph said.

Warner shipped out to southeast Asia in February of 1967. On July 29 of that year, he was shot dead while on a mission in Vietnam’s Quang Tri Province. He was 18.

Warner is one of 74 men from Snohomish County depicted on the Wall of Faces, a webpage hosted by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. The same group built The Wall, the black granite Vietnam veterans memorial on the National Mall. Warner’s name appears on the virtual wall as Anthony Leach, his birth name before his mother remarried.

By last week 46,467 photos had been collected nationwide, leaving 11,808 left to go. A complete group of pictures is available for 11 states.

People in Washington — and in many other parts of the country — can thank a florist from Maui for much of the work that’s gone into tracking down photos of fallen Vietnam vets, including Warner’s.

Janna Hoehn works on the project in her spare time, when she’s not busy with weddings. Hoehn has just six photos left to complete Washington, home to more than 1,000 fallen Vietnam vets. A year ago, she was searching for six photos in Snohomish County alone.

“I put over 40 hours per week into this project and every single second has been worth it,” she said.

As she approaches her goal for the Evergreen state, Hoehn said she’s also closing in on pictures for fallen Vietnam vets from Colorado, where nine remain, and Alaska, where four remain. She completed Oregon last month.

“It’s been an amazing journey and I’ve met some of the nicest people I have ever met,” Hoehn said. “When you talk to families who have suffered such a terrible loss, they’re just so grateful that somebody wants to remember their loved one.”

Joseph learned about the Wall of Faces from an article about Hoehn’s efforts published in The Daily Herald in September 2014. She was visiting Western Washington at the time from her home in Alabama.

A retiree who once founded a staffing company for people with disabilities, Joseph recalled growing up with her younger brother in a public housing complex in north Everett, before the family moved. He was the middle of three children who, for much of their childhood, were raised by a single mother.

“We spent a lot of time at Mission Beach out on the (Tulalip) Indian Reservation, fishing and swimming and catching crawdads,” she said. “We played baseball and swam in the ocean.”

Had Warner returned from Vietnam, he might now be enjoying retirement.

Bruce Crawford hasn’t forgotten his friend. He and Warner bonded while growing up in the same Everett neighborhood. It was a place where people often were down on their luck, but nevertheless instilled strong values in their children, he said.

“As young boys raising hell, we always had to drag Tony along,” Crawford said. “Most of the time he was shy and bashful. He was a nice kid. He was probably nicer than the rest of us.”

Crawford also served in Vietnam, in the Navy. Three of his childhood acquaintances, including Warner, were killed in the war.

“We were all young kids in a foreign land a hell of a long ways from Everett, Washington,” he said.

Now retired, Crawford lives near Conway. A decade ago he built a flag pole in his front yard in Warner’s memory. The monument also honors his father and father-in-law, who were World War II vets.

Crawford last saw his friend over Christmas break in 1966. The following summer, he was flown back to the United States from Vietnam for his friend’s funeral.

“He was a normal young boy who went to war,” he said. “We were all young boys who believed that we were doing what our country needed to have done. That’s the way we were all raised.”

Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.

Missing photos

Photos are still missing for the following fallen Vietnam War veterans with Washington state connections:

King County

Ronald E. Fitzgerald (1950-1970) of Auburn. Also has ties to Nashville, Tennessee.

Kenneth E. Sargent (1936-1965) of Auburn.

Norman R. Wilson (1940-1966) of Seattle. Also has ties to Illinois.

Pierce County

Kenneth L. Newby Jr. (1948-1968) of Sumner.

Edward L. Van Horn (1947-1968) of Tacoma.

Thurston County

Edward O. Bilsie (1941-1967) of Olympia. (Hoehn has made contact with the family.)