News-Info-Alerts

Re: Bracelet Becomes Six Degrees of Separation

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: December 08, 2002

"By Associated Press JACKSON -- A U.S. soldier missing in the Vietnam War has forged a bond between a teacher and a student, though neither ever met the man.

   Susan Berridge, 43, a teacher at the Jackson County Career Center, wore Army Sgt. Michael Wallace's name on a bracelet when she was younger, as a reminder of the hundreds of soldiers in the Vietnam War who were missing in action.

   Unknown to her, Wallace was the uncle of one of her students, Julie Bouchard, The Jackson Citizen Patriot reported in a Friday story.

   As a middle school student in Clinton during the Vietnam War, Berridge put together $3.50 with her baby-sitting money and sent away for an MIA bracelet after she saw a friend wearing one.

   The silver bracelet arrived with the name of Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. Wallace, and she wore it faithfully.

   Berridge watched the newspapers for Wallace's name whenever war casualties were listed. Months after the war ended, she learned he'd been declared killed in action.

   "There was an article in the Ann Arbor newspaper about him. I didn't know he was from Ann Arbor," Berridge said.

   She got the address of Wallace's family, and in keeping with MIA bracelet tradition, broke the bracelet in half and sent it to the family.

   That was the last she heard about Wallace until Nov. 8, when she noticed Bouchard's ring.

   "Julie showed me a little compartment in it and said it was for a cyanide pill -- in case they got captured and taken as a prisoner of war, they'd have the option of taking the pill," Berridge said. "She told me her uncle was killed in the war."

   Berridge told her student that she'd worn Wallace's MIA bracelet until he was declared dead.

   "She said, "You sent us the bracelet in a green box. My mother still has it,"' Berridge said.

   The two cried and hugged.

   Berridge called Bouchard's mother, Wallace's sister, and talked more about the coincidence.

   "She said it really touched her mother's heart when I sent the bracelet," Berridge said. "She was too grieved to write back."

   Julie's mother, Kathryn Bouchard of Napoleon, was a child when her big brother disappeared in April 1968 over Vietnam. He was in the rear of a helicopter that broke in half under enemy fire.

   His body was never recovered. "