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Re: At The Wall

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: July 28, 2003

"Kirby: At Vietnam Wall, I am Capt. Ellison

by Robert Kirby
Salt Lake Tribune Columnist

    I don't remember just when I started wearing the name of another man on my right wrist. More than 25 years ago, that's for sure.

    Although we have never met face to face, Buzz Ellison and I have been friends all this time. I visit him as often as possible, or at least whenever I am in Washington, D.C. But on Saturday, Buzz came to see me.

    The occasion of our meeting was the arrival of the Traveling Wall, a three-quarters size replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The model of the black stone memorial was set up at Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park in Riverton.

    Buzz is the nickname of U.S. Navy Capt. John C. Ellison, from Layton, who was shot down March 24, 1967, over North Vietnam.

    Ellison and his bombardier, Lt. j.g. Jim Plowman launched in their A-6 Intruder aircraft from the USS Kittyhawk on a strike against the Bac Giang thermal power plant. It was Ellison's second combat tour in Vietnam.

    Following the bombing run, radar tracked Ellison's aircraft as it headed toward the Gulf of Tonkin. Radar contact was lost near the Vietnam/China border. Although Ellison managed to contact his rescuers from the ground, search and rescue efforts failed.

    Although the North Vietnamese never admitted capturing Ellison and Plowman, there is evidence that they survived the shoot-down. Both men were listed as missing in action, and later as "died while in captivity."

    There are those who believe that Ellison might still be alive somewhere in Southeast Asia. I am not one of them. I believe that Ellison eventually died while in the hands of the North Vietnamese, and that his last thoughts were of home.

    Vietnam was a real threat to my generation. Those not called upon to fight there personally invariably knew someone who was. We saw what happened to many of them by reading newspaper obituaries.

    I missed Vietnam by an inch, skipping just ahead of the draft into the Utah National Guard. I wish I could say that I was embarrassed at missing one of the defining moments of my generation, but I can't. Vietnam was not a place that suffered unwary fools well. Most likely I would have come home in a box.

    But this does not mean the Kirby family missed out. My father, Army Warrant Officer Robert Kirby Sr., served there in 1973.

    Thousands of people came to the Traveling Wall display in Riverton, most of them looking for friends and family who did not survive one of America's greatest tragedies.

    I found Buzz where he always is: on Panel 17E Line 35. I touched his name and showed him the POW bracelet with his name. And again I committed to remembering his sacrifice and that of the 58,000 other names on the Wall.

    While I would like to know what happened to Ellison, I wear his name more as a pointed reminder to myself. I am too old for war now, but not so old that I can forget.

    Vietnam taught me that I do not want to be missing in action when it comes to holding our government accountable for the blood it frequently requires in faraway places.

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    Salt Lake Tribune columnist Robert Kirby welcomes mail at 143 S. Main St., Salt Lake City, UT 84111, or e-mail at rkirby@sltrib.com.
     
©2003, The Salt Lake Tribune"