It was only one letter, written by a young officer in Vietnam to a six-grade student in Florida. But it would come to have such a powerful hold on that student’s life that 35 years later she still had the two pages tucked away in a cedar chest, and she often thought about the soldier from North Carolina who had written them.
No longer a child in Florida but a housewife in Virginia, with children of her own, Sharon Richwine wondered what that young Army sergeant had looked like. She wondered where he had grown up, and whether his parents were still alive. She wondered what had happened to him in that distant land.
As a student at Morgan Woods Elementary School in Tampa, she had written to him as part of a class project. At the time, anti-war protests were flaring on streets and campuses around the country. Her sixth-grade teacher suggested that his students write letters of support to U.S. troops in Vietnam, to show they were not forgotten and that their service was appreciated. This was a mission that Sharon, the child of a career Air Force officer, eagerly embraced. When she wrote her letter, she didn’t know who would get it — only that it was going to an Army soldier serving with Team 91 of the Military Advisory Command, in Binh Duong Province. The class had chosen Team 91 because a student’s father was a member of the group.
The young girl’s mother bought special stationery, and Sharon sent her letter off around Thanksgiving, wondering if she would receive a reply.
About three weeks later, the “air mail” envelope addressed to “Miss Sharon Mergelkamp” (her maiden name) and postmarked Dec 14, 1967, showed up in her mailbox.
“I was tickled to death,” she recalled, her voice still holding some of that young girl’s delight and excitement. She opened the envelope and began to read.
“Dear Sharon,” the letter began. “I want to thank you and the rest of your classmates at Morgan Woods School for your interest in us here in Vietnam.
“First, let me introduce myself. I’m Sergeant Hugh G. Willard. I’m 24 years old and have been in the United States Army for almost two years. I’ve been in Vietnam for three months ...”
He told her a bit about his military duties. “My mission here is intelligence. I’m to assist and advise the Vietnamese in all areas of intelligence work. It is quite a job and is very interesting, but it is a far cry from James Bond, 007.” He also described some of the countryside — “much like Florida in the fact that it is flat and has dense growths of foliage” — and the peasant farmers who grew “rice, sugarcane, and many other products much the same as farmers in America,” except that they used water buffalo to pull their plows.
“... Say hello to the rest of your classmates for me,” the letter ended. “And if you have any questions, please write me.”
Of course, she did have questions and a great desire to learn more about the sergeant. She immediately wrote another letter, and then another, and another — six in all — eagerly awaiting the letters she expected to receive in return. But days passed, and then weeks, with no reply. Then, her own letters began coming back to her, unopened, stamped with the words “verified deceased.”
“I was just devastated,” she said. “I knew immediately what that meant. I just pitched them into the trash can.”
Pitched them all except for one, that is — the letter from Sergeant Willard. Through her teen years and early adulthood, through moves and motherhood, she kept the letter, a piece of her past seared as vividly in memory as a signal flare in the jungle darkness. Eight years ago, now living in Woodbridge, Va., she went to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington and found Hugh Willard’s name among the 58,169 on the wall. Along with the name, she had a date — Dec. 23, 1967. That was when he had died.
That might have been the end of it if it hadn’t been for Sept. 11, 2001, and the deployment of U.S. forces to Afghanistan. As she thought of another generation of soldiers going off to fight another war, separated from families they might never see again, it was a powerful reminder of the sergeant who had written to her. She had an overwhelming need to get in touch with Hugh Willard’s family, wherever they were — to share the letter with them and express her appreciation for a soldier’s sacrifice. Perhaps they would send her a picture of him and tell her where he was buried, so that she could finally pay a personal visit.
But where to begin? All she had was a name, an age, and the state where he had lived. She sent letters to various government agencies, thinking they might help. “Most agencies never responded,” she said. “Of the two that did, one said the answer lies in military records, and those are only for family members.”
She contacted veterans organizations. She did research on the Internet. She wrote letters to newspapers. In desperation, she even considered hiring a private detective to locate Hugh’s parents. “He told me it would cost between $500 and $2000 to find out where they were,” she said. “As a housewife, that was way out of my league.”
Finally, a Vietnam vet with whom she corresponded by e-mail supplied the vital clue: He had found Sergeant Willard mentioned in a newspaper article about the 38 Rowan County officers who died in Vietnam. The article was in the Salisbury Post — and Sharon Richwine finally had a hometown to connect with her soldier’s name.
She wrote to local churches and social organizations, asking for help in locating relatives. That’s how she finally found Kent Roberts, a cousin of Hugh Willard. He, in turn, led her to Sergeant Willard’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Albert G. Willard, who now live in Orangeburg, S.C.
“To my great fortune, Hugh’s cousin was a member of the Elk’s Club and saw my letter,” she said. “We have been in contact ever since.”
Now, Richwine has learned much more about Sergeant Willard. She knows that he was a 1962 graduate of Salisbury’s Boyden High, where his classmates gathered $160 to make a memorial contribution after his death. He attended N.C. State University in Raleigh and worked for the Charlotte Planning Commission before entering the service. According to a 1967 story in the Post, he was killed in an ambush while serving as an intelligence advisor to South Vietnamese forces. In 1968, he was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star for valor. “... The unit was attacked by a strong and determined enemy force” of at least 30 Viet Cong, according to a military statement read during the presentation of the medal. “... But, because of the integrity of defenses prepared by Sergeant Willard, the enemy was prevented from overrunning the unit.”
Just as Sergeant Willard fulfilled his last mission, Richwine in one sense has completed hers. She has seen to it that a soldier’s family received one of the last letters he wrote and that they know what those words meant to a little girl growing up in Florida. And she hopes to fulfill another mission in the near future — visiting his gravesite at Rowan Memorial Park. But a task remains. She wants to learn more about Hugh Willard’s service in Vietnam. She wants to find some of the surviving members of Team 91 who served with him. It is her way of honoring his memory — of continuing the conversation so painfully cut short 35 years ago.
“... I have never forgotten him,” Richwine wrote in a letter sent to several newspapers during her search. “An honorable young soldier showed me at an early age the true meaning of great heroism and ultimate sacrifice for one’s country.”
Today's News
