You might be able to help.
To date, volunteers have collected more than 42,000 photographs of the 58,307 men and women listed on the memorial. Missing photos of the fallen from Montezuma County are Edward L. Garcia, of Cortez, and Robert M. Liddell and Robert E. Montoya, both of Mancos.
Garcia, an Army specialist in the 1st Infantry Division, died after a mortar attack in Binh Duong, north of Ho Chi Minh City, on March 3, 1969. He was 21.
Liddell, an Army master sergeant with the military assistance command Vietnam team, died in a mortar attack in the Dinh Tuong Province of South Vietnam on April 1, 1970. He was 37.
Montoya, an Army medic with the 1st Calvary Division, died from malaria in the Binh Dinh Province of South Vietnam on Dec. 16, 1965. He was 24.
Janna Hoehn, of Maui, has taken up the cause to obtain photos of the three men. She made her first visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall six years ago.
“Even though I never knew anyone killed in Vietnam, I wanted a rubbing of one of the names,” Hoehn recalled. “I approached the wall and chose a name, Gregory John Crossman.”
Returning home, Hoehn researched Crossman with hopes to locate his family. In the event they were unable to visit the memorial, she wanted to send them the etching, hoping they would share a photo of Crossman.
“Off and on for six months, I researched every way possible and never found any family,” said Hoehn. “I was quite disappointed.”
Hoehn then reached out to a cousin, a historian, and within six weeks she found a college photo of Crossman.
Two years later, Hoehn discovered the “Faces Never Forgotten” project, an effort to attach a photo and story to each name on The Wall.
“I immediately sent in the photo I had of Gregory,” said Hoehn.
Within a week, Hoehn received an email from Jan Scruggs, founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, thanking her for sending the photo. She agreed to help locate photos for 42 Maui County heroes killed in Vietnam.
“What I thought would be a very easy project with Maui being so small was anything but easy,” she said.
Combing through phone books and making telephone calls, she found about 10 photos. She then searched archived yearbooks for every high school on Maui, and found a few more. She searched obituaries at the public library and found three more. She reached out to a local news reporter, and calls from across the nation poured in.
“The Maui News ran an article about every six weeks printing the list of names of photos I still needed,” said Hoehn. “Every time they ran a story, I would receive another photo or two, and after six months of searching, I had a photo of every fallen hero from Maui County.”
Hoehn’s quest shifted to her hometown, Hemet, Calif. Her search expanded California, then to Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina, Alaska, Utah and Montana.
“The response has been amazing,” said Hoehn. “I have collected over 1,500 photos since May 2013.”
“Putting a face with a name changes the whole dynamic of the Wall,” Hoehn said. “It keeps our fallen heroes’ memories alive.”
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