Researching a name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a great project that helps bring history to life for students.  This lesson plan was created by Al Hernandez, a member of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund's (VVMF) Teach Vietnam Teachers Network from Columbus, Ohio, and can be adapted to your classroom or organization.  

After students have completed their research, encourage them to participate in community presentations about the Education Center at The Wall, as well as submit the information they’ve gathered to the VVMF.  This is a unique experience for a student and gives them an opportunity to see how their work can help educate future generations.  The stories the students share demonstrate how each and every community throughout the United States will be represented at the Education Center.

To learn more about The Education Center at The Wall, please visit www.buildthecenter.org. 


Established in 1979, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., promoting healing and educating about the impact of the Vietnam War.  Authorized by Congress, its most recent initiative is building The Education Center at The Wall, an underground facility near the Memorial that is designed to add faces to all the names on The Wall and tell their stories.  Other Memorial Fund initiatives include educational programs for students and teachers, a traveling Wall replica that honors our nation's veterans and a humanitarian and mine-action program in Vietnam.


FACES OF HONOR
A Personal Journey of Discovery

More than 58,000 American men and women made the ultimate sacrifice for our country during the Vietnam War.  They are remembered today at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, known to most Americans simply as “The Wall,” in Washington, D.C.  Over the next few weeks, I want you to get to know at least ten (10) of these American heroes who gave their lives to safeguard the freedoms we so often take for granted.   

You may wish to start your research by visiting The Virtual Wall on VVMF’s web site www.vvmf.org.
Here, you can view profiles and remembrances of those whose names are inscribed on The Wall.  

In addition to the Internet, you may find local resources such as school and community libraries, town halls and veterans groups (i.e. VFW, American Legion and VVA Posts) useful.

Your project should include the following for each service member:

The individual’s photograph.  If you are unable to locate a photograph online, you may find one in a school yearbook or search old newspapers for the obituary.

The individual’s name, followed by as much of their personal information as possible: rank, branch of service, unit, birth date, casualty date, cause of death*, hometown, state and where their name is found on The Wall.

A detailed synopsis of their experiences in Vietnam, including all decorations (medals) received.  This is to be presented in correct paragraph form.

As much personal information as you can find about their lives before Vietnam.  These may include statements from family, friends and relatives that you find in the remembrances on The Virtual Wall or through in-person interviews.  This is also to be presented in correct paragraph form.

The parameters of your search are strictly up to you – make it personally meaningful.  You can organize your search by last name; by date of birth; by casualty date; by branch of service; by unit; by hometown.  You can look up family members, if applicable, or people that your family members served with.

Your final project should have a suitable cover, preferably in color, that speaks to the subject and solemnity of the project.  Again, there are plenty of photos available on the internet.  Your cover page should also include the title of the project: “Faces of Honor – A Journey of Personal Discovery” featured prominently centered below the photo.  Your name (first AND last) and section number are to be centered below the title.


*Note to teachers: Please caution your students that the cause of death may be suicide and if so, should be treated with sensitivity, especially if interviewing family and friends.  Your students should also refrain from disclosing this information in their reports or community presentations as a courtesy to the family.
Each entry is to be its own separate page, with one inch margins on all four sides.  The photo and personal information (see Item #2 above) are to be centered from the top of the page.  Your paragraphs are to be underneath (Times New Roman 12, single spaced).  I have attached a detailed example of what your pages MUST look like.  (If your biography runs long, as the example below does, you may reduce the font size as needed.  However, keep in mind that your project must be READABLE!)

After you have researched and reported on at least ten individuals, you are to describe, in a well written essay of five paragraphs, the impact that learning about the lives of real people who fought and died in Vietnam has made on your understanding and appreciation of the stories and texts (see below for suggestions) we are reading in class.

An example of what a completed project might look like is on the next page.


Project Due:        


Suggested books include:
A Piece of My Heart: Stories of Twenty-Six Women Who Served in Vietnam by Keith Walker
A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo
Bloods: Black Veterans of the Vietnam War: An Oral History by Wallace Terry
Dear America: Letters from Vietnam by Bernard Edelman
Shrapnel in the Heart by Laura Palmer
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
We Were Soldiers Once…and Young by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and Joe Galloway

Example:

Sharon Ann Lane
First Lieutenant
312TH EVAC HOSP, 67TH MED GRP, 44TH MED BDE

Army of The United States
07 July 1943 - 08 June 1969
Canton, OH

Panel 23W, Line 112

Lt. Sharon Lane arrived in the Republic of Vietnam at 0800 hours on Saturday, 26 April 1969 to begin a 365-day tour of duty as an Army nurse.  Her initial assignment was the 312th Evacuation Hospital in Chu Lai, Quang Tin Province.  In addition to the 312th Evac, Chu Lai was also home to the Americal Division, the 29th Infantry.  Lt. Lane was assigned to Ward 4B, which housed recovering Vietnamese (often VC or PAVN soldiers) where she worked a 12-hour rotation from 1900 hours to 0700 hours (7:00 PM – 7:00 AM).  At 0550 hours, Lt. Lane had just completed another round of the ward.  Her patients consisted primarily of Vietnamese women and children, and she was preparing her report for the in-coming day shift when at Soviet-made 122mm rocket, fired by a PAVN gun crew slammed into the walkway connecting Wards 4A and 4B, but it was Ward 4B that bore the brunt of the damage.  Lt. Lane lay unconscious and bleeding on the floor amid the wreckage and debris.  Although initial medical aid arrived within seconds of the rocket blast, Lt. Lane had already bled to death, from a shrapnel wound that lacerated her carotid artery.  Sharon Ann Lane, the only American servicewoman killed as a direct result of enemy fire, was 25 years old.  Lt. Lane returned to the United States, where she was interred at Sunset Hills Cemetery in Canton, Ohio, on 14 June 1969.  Among here decorations are the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Vietnam Service, Vietnam Campaign, Vietnam Gallantry Cross, Republic of Vietnam Military Merit, and National Defense medals.

Sharon Ann Lane was born in Zanesville, Ohio, the second of three children born to John and Kay Lane.  In 1950, the Lanes moved to Canton, Ohio.  Sharon Lane graduated from South Canton High School on 31 May, 1961, and swept up in the excitement of President Kennedy’s “New Frontier,” she enrolled in Canton’s Aultman Hospital School of Nursing, graduating in April 1965.  After working at Aultman Hospital for two years, Sharon decided to change and enrolled at Canton Business College, but this too proved to be less than she expected.  On April 18, 1968, Sharon decided to put her nursing skills to work  where she believed it was most needed, enlisting as an Army nurse.  She reported to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where she was commissioned a Second Lieutenant.  She graduated on 14 June 1968, and reported to Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver, Colorado, where she served until departing for Vietnam on 24 April 1969.  The recovery room where she worked at Fitzsimmons was renamed in her honor in 1970.  In 1973, a bronze statue of Lt. Sharon Lane was dedicated in front of the Aultman Hospital School of Nursing; inscribed around it base are the names of 110 Canton-area servicemen who gave their lives in Vietnam.  Founded in June 2001, the Sharon Ann Lane Foundation is a non-profit organization has built and maintains a medical clinic at the Tam Hiep commune in Chu Lai, the site of Lane’s wartime service.