Marine's name belongs on Virginia War Memorial

First, consider these facts: Marine Lance Cpl. Darrell Schumann saw some of the most intense, bloody fighting in the Iraq war - three months of house-to-house combat in the infamously deadly city of Fallujah in late 2004. He survived, but a few weeks later he and 30 others perished when a helicopter - the first leg of what was supposed to be his journey home to Hampton - crashed in a sandstorm in the desert.

Now, ask yourself this: Does Lance Cpl. Darrell Schumann's name belong on the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond?

Most Virginians and most Americans, we suspect, would answer that question with a quick, reflexive and hearty "yes."

But state officials have determined Schumann doesn't qualify for inclusion on the stone-and-glass wall because the Department of Defense classifies him as a "nonhostile casualty."

The memorial, as The Pilot's Louis Hansen reported Wednesday, is reserved for people unfortunate enough to fall into two other categories - killed in action and hostile casualty.

Rules are essential, as any veteran of military service can attest, but in regard to the Virginia War Memorial, the rules seem to shift with the sand.

The wall does, in fact, contain the names of people who died in accidents in combat zones, according to Darrell's father, Rick Schumann, who began looking into the matter after noticing his son's name was missing from a list of names to be added to the wall. "They all should be recognized, regardless of the conflict," he says.

Excluding Darrell Schumann from the wall may fit the state's written guidelines, but it's an exclusion that doesn't match precedent. And it's an exclusion that doesn't come anywhere near matching these basic facts: Fallujah, three months, house-to-house combat, a deadly helicopter crash on the way home.

Someone in the state bureaucracy needs to muster just a bit of the courage that Schumann demonstrated in his short life and see to it that this young man's name is promptly added to the wall.