From Vision To Reality: The Evolution of the In Memory Plaque
Eleven years after it began, Ruth Coder Fitzgerald sounds surprised to be talking about it in the present tense. To speak of its completion is to acknowledge the reality of the struggle’s success, an outcome she always hoped for but whose likelihood she often described as “miraculous.”“It’s surreal now that it’s over,” she said.An in-ground plaque has been installed near The Wall, its inscription marking more than a decade of determination by Coder and others who argued in its favor: “In Memory of the men and women who served in The Vietnam War and later died as a result of their service. We honor and remember their sacrifice.”Unveiled in July, the In Memory plaque will be dedicated on Veterans Day with VVA, a strong supporter of the effort from its earliest days, conducting the ceremony.In 1992, Coder Fitzgerald’s brother, John Coder, a Jolly Green Giant pilot in Vietnam, died from complications arising from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was 49. His cancer had been attributed to Agent Orange exposure during the war.Coder Fitzgerald requested that his name be added to The Wall. The request was denied.In 1993, she became active with the now-defunct Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The group conducted an In Memory service to honor those who died as a result of the war but whose deaths came long after the war ended. John Coder was among the first ten to be honored.In 1995, still dissatisfied that her brother and others had not been properly recognized for their service and sacrifice, Coder Fitzgerald wrote to family members of those who had died or who had Agent Orange-related diseases. The response encouraged her to move forward with an effort to establish a permanent marker.In 1996, she incorporated The Vietnam War In Memory, Inc. She organized a board of directors and began work on getting a permanent marker near The Wall. She thought it would be “miraculous” if she succeeded by 2001 or 2002. The miracle, borne of long years of work, came about in 2004.“I never imagined it would happen,” she said. “I thought, 'God bless people for trying.' I thought we’d get to the point when someone would say, ‘Nope, not gonna happen’, and we could at least look each other in the eye and say that we tried. So the fact that this was successful is, well, give me a word
Tell others about
this page:
Comments? Questions? Email Here