Thread: Long-lost Vietnam War memorial plaque surfaces

Long-lost Vietnam War memorial plaque surfaces at port customs facility

By Art Marroquin Staff Writer
Posted: 04/27/2011 06:50:17 PM PDTUpdated: 04/27/2011 07:16:51 PM PDT

A long-lost Vietnam War veterans memorial plaque was discovered inside a crate bound for Thailand during a routine inspection at the Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport complex, federal authorities announced Wednesday.

Officers were initially searching for illegal weapons or ammunition that may have been stashed inside a container filled with military surplus items, set to leave the port complex on April 19, said Jaime Ruiz, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Instead, lying beneath a pile of old parachutes, uniforms and rifle slings, customs inspectors uncovered a bronze plaque bearing the names of 19 servicemen who were declared as missing in action or prisoners of war.

"They started digging it out," Ruiz said. "It didn't make any sense to us."

Customs officials spent the next several days searching for the owner of the memorial marker and solicited help from the Vietnam Veterans of America.

A retired Air Force general finally recognized some of the names on the plaque and connected federal authorities with family members of the servicemen, all of whom had ties to Fayetteville, N.C., Ruiz said.

Americans Who Care, a Fayetteville community group, dedicated the plaque in 1973 at the front of a hotel that was marked for demolition seven years ago.

After decades of neglect, cigarette butts littered the mud-covered memorial, said Suzanne Schrump, whose father-in-law, Maj. Raymond Schrump, was listed on the plaque.

"It got to the point of being disrespectful to the memories of those men and my father-in-law, who was a prisoner in Vietnam for five years," Schrump said.

With help from the hotel's demolition crew, Schrump pried the marker loose and placed it in the back of her car.

She had planned to repolish and refine the bronze plaque, then place it at Freedom Memorial Park, where several other war memorials are located in downtown Fayetteville. On the advice of one of the park's committee members, Schrump took the marker to a shop that had worked on other veteran memorials.

Weeks and months passed, but Schrump never heard back from the company's owner. It was later discovered that he declared bankruptcy and left North Carolina.

"I emailed him, I left messages, I begged him to give it back to us, but he never did," Schrump said.

Years later the Schrumps concluded that the marker might never be found. She believes it was likely sold over the Internet and passed through several hands.

Last week, Schrump got a phone call notifying her that the missing memorial had turned up at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The plaque was delivered Tuesday to the Fayetteville Police Department. Schrump and her father-in-law plan to retrieve it today.

The marker will finally be cleaned up and rededicated on Veterans Day at Freedom Memorial Park, she said.

"It's been such a long search, but I'm just elated that it's back home," Schrump said. "This really restores my belief that there are good people in this world and good people protecting the borders of our country."

art.marroquin@dailybreeze.com

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_17943143

"This really restores my belief that there are good people in this world and good people protecting the borders of our country."