Mail Tribune - Remembering the fallen - August 25, 2006

Hi _Your Shield_!

Traveling memorial helps an older brother heal in southern Oregon. Ed Mazza was wounded in Vietnam, and his younger brother Robert Mazza was killed in 1967. Read the story from the Mail Tribune. His first cousin, Stephen Mazza, also died there.

http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2006/0825/local/stories/vietnamwall0.htm

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USAKIA
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August 25, 2006

Remembering the fallen

Traveling Vietnam War memorial contains the names of 58,215 Americans who were killed

Ed Mazza of Rogue River touches the name of his first cousin, Stephen D. Mazza,
at a traveling version of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall at the Southern
Oregon Rehabilitation Center and Clinics in White City. Mazza, whose brother
also died in the war, lost his right arm in a rocket attack.
(Mail Tribune / Jim Craven)

By Paul Fattig
Mail Tribune

WHITE CITY — Ed Mazza ran his artificial right arm decorated with an American flag down panel 21E of a traveling version of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.

"There he is," he said as he drew a deep breath, adding, "Robert had just turned 19."

Robert W. Mazza was his kid brother. A newly-minted lance corporal in the Marine Corps, he was killed on June 10, 1967, at Quang Tri just south of Danang.

Big brother Ed, 62, of Rogue River, knows about Vietnam: It was where he lost his right arm. A Navy veteran, 1st Class Machinist Mate Mazza had volunteered to serve on a riverboat on the MeKong River delta when it was struck by a rocket on Oct. 17, 1966.

"It hit us dead center," he recalled. "Killed everybody on board except me. I was the only survivor."

The traveling tribute, which contains the names of 58,215 Americans killed in the war, opened to the public at noon Thursday at the Department of Veterans Affairs' Southern Oregon Rehabilitation Center and Clinics (SORCC). The SORCC is at 8295 Crater Lake Ave. off Highway 62 in White City.

The 370-foot long wall, a replica of the stationary Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., will be open 24 hours a day until Sunday evening. There is no charge.

Ed Mazza, one of several people who had earlier addressed the crowd of more than 100 people during the opening ceremony, noted he had three comrades-in-arms and two relatives on the wall.

"This wall has brought a measure of healing for me," he told those assembled. "I can only hope it can help all veterans heal from the horrors of war, no matter in which campaign they served."

Later, Mazza, who spent his childhood in Atascadero, Calif., said he will never forget his younger brother.

"He was a star athlete," he recalled. "When he was still in high school, the Dodgers were going to draft him as a pitcher. He was really good. He was supposed to start spring training with them when he got out of high school.

"He went to Vietnam instead," he added.

The Navy veteran said he returned home wounded late in 1966.

"He wanted to go," he said. "Our parents tried to talk him out of it. He went anyway. He wasn't over there very long. He had only been there three or four months."

He stopped talking to look at his brother's name.

"When I see this, I feel sick to my stomach, absolutely sick to my stomach," he said. "First time I went to the wall in D.C. was in '95. I broke down for about four days. I couldn't function."

Farther along the wall on panel 38E is the name of Stephen D. Mazza, Ed's first cousin.

"His mother and dad were killed in a car wreck so my dad took him in," Ed Mazza said. "We raised him."

His cousin, a Spec. 4 in the Army, was killed Feb. 10, 1968, near the village of Tay Ninh.

Ed Mazza, who credits the SORCC for his physical and emotional recovery and where he has volunteered for years, said he feels a special closeness to veterans of all stripes.

"There are a lot of names that aren't on the wall," he said. "A lot of veterans died after the war, suicides and other things."

"But this wall helps," he added. "It helps heal us."

Farther along the wall, former Marine George Zavala, 60, of Medford, was looking for his friend Thomas E. "Tom" Combs on the wall. Combs, a lance corporal, died April 5, 1967.

A retired police officer, Zavala was only 18 when he arrived in Vietnam in the late 1960s.

"I was recovering from wounds when Tom died," he said. "I had shrapnel in my legs."

Garland and Eula Arnaud of Sams Valley spent a few moments in silence before the name of Steve M. Hastings, a young man that Eula knew as a child in Baldwin Park, Calif.

"He was a family friend," she explained. "All I know is that Stever was on a rescue helicopter in the Army when he was killed."

"We just wanted to pay tribute to him, and all those who are continuing to answer the call," said Garland, 56, a Vietnam veteran who served as an enlisted man with an armored cavalry unit in the Army in 1969-70.

"I'd do it all again today if I could," he concluded.

Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496
or at mailto:pfattig@mailtribune.com?subject=Remembering

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