Bill seeks to honor more of Va.'s fallen on war memorial

Which veterans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan should be honored on the Virginia War Memorial?

As state officials consider expanding the monument, the question has divided some lawmakers and grieving families from those who administer the memorial.

Memorial officials maintain that only service members killed in hostile action belong. That criteria would exclude veterans such as Marine Lance Cpl. Darrell Schumann, of Hampton, who was killed when his helicopter crashed into the Iraqi desert during a sandstorm.

That policy also would be inconsistent with the memorial itself, a Virginian-Pilot analysis of Virginia war death records has found. At least 1,911 veterans now listed on the memorial died outside of combat - in accidents, from disease and by suicide in one case. That's nearly one out of every six service members honored. For another 2,181 veterans listed, it could not be determined whether they died during combat.

On Tuesday, a committee of veterans and lawmakers will meet at the memorial, set near the James River in downtown Richmond, to try to reach a compromise on a new standard.

They will discuss standards and a bill, HB2192, introduced by Del. Vivian Watts this month, that would allow more service members to be honored. It would include all Virginians who were deployed in combat areas and who died from hostile or nonhostile causes, as long as they were not self-inflicted.

A House of Delegates committee is expected to consider the measure on Thursday.

Darrell Schumann's father, Rick Schumann, said the research shows that the memorial has always honored men and women who died in the line of duty, not simply by enemy fire.

"Most people don't understand what that means," Rick Schumann said, a retired Air Force command chief master sergeant. "My son died in the line of duty."

Passions run deep on this issue, said Watts, a Democrat from Fairfax. "It's very difficult to step back and say, 'Would you or wouldn't you honor this individual?' " she said.

The memorial began after World War II and honors "patriotic Virginians who rendered faithful service and sacrifice in the cause of freedom and liberty for the Commonwealth and the nation in time of war," according to state law.

Since then, state officials have gradually tightened the standard for who can be honored, according to memorial and legislative records.

In the 1980s, the memorial's board of trustees decided that only service members who died because of hostile action should be listed.

In 1992, the General Assembly rewrote the memorial law to state that for casualties of the Persian Gulf War, only those killed in action should be listed. That could exclude those who died later of injuries sustained on the battlefield.

Yet, the memorial board's current chairman, Del. Frank Hargrove, of Hanover County, wrote in a December 2008 memo that the standard has not changed for 50 years.

The standard, he wrote, was determined by earlier war memorial commissions.

"If adding the names of those killed by accident in the War on Terror is done, I am concerned that a family who had lost a relative due to accidental death in WWII, Korea or Vietnam would request that their family member be treated equally," he wrote to the board of trustees. "I do believe that we need to treat each war that we memorialize the same."

The Pilot analysis, which found the memorial honors many service members who died accidentally, is based on war death records compiled by Edwin Ray, a reference librarian at the Library of Virginia.

Ray has single-handedly created a database of nearly 42,000 Virginians who died while on active duty in conflicts dating back to colonial wars.

He began the work seven years ago in response to media inquiries about war casualties. He combed through 850 sources - military records, books, newspaper accounts, personal histories - to create the list, which is posted at the library's Web site: www.lva.lib.va.us. He updates it twice a year, on Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

In many cases, Ray was able to determine the circumstances of a service member's death.

The Pilot compared the names on the memorial with those in Ray's database and found 10,788 matches. Those include 1,911 service members who died of accidents, disease and wounds away from the battlefield. Nearly 2,200 more who either did not have recorded causes of death, went missing outside of combat, drowned or were legally declared dead, according to state records.

Those who were honored after dying outside of enemy combat include:

- Petty Officer 2nd Class Richard Clough, a machinist's mate based in Norfolk, who died in January 1942 when a friendly escort vessel accidentally collided with his ship in the Gulf of Panama.

- Petty Officer 1st Class Larry Marchbank, an aviation technician from Portsmouth, who died in a March 1970 plane crash over Da Nang, South Vietnam.

- Air Force Capt. Dwaine Mattox, from Virginia Beach, who died when his cargo plane crashed over Khanh Hoa province in South Vietnam in August 1970.

Both Marchbank and Mattox are also honored on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.

Ray said he's learned that there's not always a clear-cut distinction among war deaths. "There are a myriad of ways people die, especially in war," he said.

Lawmakers' actions this week will determine not only whether Darrell Schumann is honored but also about 35 other Virginians killed in recent conflicts.

Names of recent war deaths will be added through the upcoming memorial expansion, to be funded with $6 million in public money and about $2 million in private donations. In addition to extending the memorial wall, the expansion will add a new library and interpretive displays.

Watts, whose bill would broaden the memorial's scope, has found support from more than 50 General Assembly members, including delegates and senators from both parties. The bill's local co-sponsors are Dels. Mamye BaCote, William K. Barlow, Joe Bouchard, Johnny Joannou, Bobby Mathieson, Kenneth Melvin, Paula Miller, Robert Tata and Jeion Ward, and Sens. Harry Blevins, John Miller and Yvonne Miller.

Lawmakers need to clarify the rules and set an inclusive policy, Watts said. But she added that she wants the policy to look forward and not force memorial staff to review deaths from conflicts long past.

"What exists right now is unacceptable," she said.

Pilot database developer Aaron Bycoffe contributed to this story.

Louis Hansen, (757) 446-2322, louis.hansen@pilotonline.com