Giving Honor Where Honor Is Due In Athens, Alabama

A number of contributors and volunteers in Athens, Alabama intend to correct the omission of a soldier’s name killed in the Vietnam War in addition to three others and correct the spelling of “VIEINAM” on a memorial erected in 1974 outside the Limestone County Courthouse.

Lance Cpl. Roy Lee joined the Marines in 1966 when he couldn’t find work after graduating from high school. Trained as a mortarman, he was sent to South Vietnam and was killed June 16, 1968. He was 19.

He was short 30 to 45 days of getting out before he would’ve been shipped home, said James Moore, his brother. That was a bad war. Many people were getting killed.

In 1974 when the memorial was erected, the resources didn’t exist to research as can be done now, explained director Sandy Thompson of the Athens-based Alabama Veterans Museum and Archives.

He has been researching residents of Limestone County who were killed in Vietnam to ascertain if more names are missing from the memorial. Thus far, it lists 19 names of those who fell.

Other missing names include Pfc. Ruben Lee Horton, 20 and 1st Lt. Morgan William Weed, 25. Horton was in South Vietnam only 19 days before he was killed.

As Thompson continues updating the list, three men labor to replace the monument.

Paul Goehler and Pierre Tourney Jr. of Decatur plan to cost-split for a new monument that Tourney said will be approximately 2.5 feet wide and 4.5 feet high.

Most residents never noticed the error even though veterans had complained for years that Vietnam was misspelled and names were missing.

Concentrated efforts to replace the memorial started when retired Marine Skip Ferguson told the Limestone County Commission he wanted to rectify the situation. He’s still involved and is raising money for two additional monuments honoring the dead killed in Beirut, Afghanistan, and Iraq, decaturdaily.com reported.

Thompson continues to research the deaths of Sgt. Carl Gene Ward, who died May 27, 1968, and Pfc. James Terrell Blalock, who died April 6, 1968.

Mortarman Lee’s name will join those of Pfc. Herman Lee Troupe and Staff Sgt. Raymond Garth.