Pablo Martinez
Monsivais / AP
Jim Lee of
Denver uses a sandblaster as he engraves the
name of Sgt. Richard Moore Pruett, one of
three names being added to the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial, on Thursday in
Washington.
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Updated:
6:38 p.m. ET May 3, 2007
WASHINGTON -
The name of Army Sgt. Richard M. Pruett is now
etched into the glossy black granite of the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial — nearly four decades
after he was wounded during a combat mission in
South Vietnam.
His wife,
Ann, wiped away tears as Pruett’s name was added
to the memorial Thursday. “He would be so
honored. It is the ultimate honor, I think, to
be on the wall,” she said.
Richard
Pruett, who was from Sherman, Texas, died in
2005 from complications related to wounds
received during the war, making him eligible for
inclusion on the memorial on the National Mall.
Also joining
those honored on the wall are Navy Fireman
Apprentice Joseph Gerald Krywicki of Holton,
Mich., and Army Spc. Wesley Alvin Stiverson of
Monticello, Ill.
Krywicki was
killed in 1966 in Vietnam when a member of his
unit accidentally discharged his rifle. The Navy
initially declined to add Krywicki’s name to the
memorial because he died not in combat but in a
“friendly fire” incident. The Navy reversed
course following inquiries from his family.
Stiverson
sustained fragmentation wounds in 1971 when his
base camp came under fire in Vietnam. The
Pentagon determined that his death in 2005 was
directly related to those wounds.
Criteria set for which names go up
The Defense Department decides which names are
to be inscribed on the wall. Victims of Agent
Orange and suicides resulting from
post-traumatic stress disorder do not meet the
Pentagon’s guidelines for inclusion, according
to the memorial’s Web site.
Since the
memorial was dedicated in 1982, a few names have
been added each year, said Jan Scruggs, founder
and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Fund.
Engraving
each new name, he said, is a painstaking and
meticulous process. The stonecarvers take great
care to get the new name to match the depth,
within one-thousandth of an inch, of the names
already on the wall.
The names of
Americans killed or missing in Vietnam are
listed on the wall by date of casualty. The new
names are being added to panels of the wall that
are closest to the dates that the men were
wounded, in keeping with the vision of memorial
designer Maya Lin.
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Pablo
Martinez Monsivais / AP
Ann
Pruett of Sherman, Texas, reaches up
to touch the freshly engraved name
of her late husband, Richard M.
Pruett, Thursday at the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial in Washington.
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Ann Pruett said her husband
was wounded while on patrol in 1969. He had
taken off his flak jacket to sit down near a
tree on a hot, humid day. Someone, she said,
tripped a wire that set off an explosive device
and Pruett was seriously wounded.
“He had
shrapnel everywhere,” said his wife. His lower
intestines, she said, were destroyed. Despite
his wounds, he went on to start a construction
company and enjoy his grandchildren. He died in
2005 from intestinal complications related to
the 1969 explosion.
Ann Pruett
said her husband had always talked about
bringing her to the wall. He had been to visit
the memorial with his sisters, but not with his
wife.
She finally
made the trip on Thursday.
“I feel like
in this case, he brought me to the wall,” she
said. “I just wish he could be with me".