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Seasoned Vet
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Welcome home, Edward Alan Brudno; good and faithful soldier By Joseph L. Galloway Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - A debate raging on the Internet has slopped over into public view and public print, and it is a debate that should never have started. It concerns a long-overdue decision by the U.S. Air Force and the Department of Defense to engrave the name of Air Force Capt. Edward Alan Brudno on the black granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
Al Brudno did not die in Vietnam, where he spent seven and a half years in the cells of such North Vietnamese prisons as the Briarpatch, Son Tay and the infamous Hoa Lo Prison - the Hanoi Hilton.
Four months after he came home to a hero's welcome with the other American POWs in 1973, Al Brudno killed himself just one day before his 33rd birthday.
Former POW Orson Swindle, a Marine pilot who is now a member of the Federal Trade Commission, had the cell next to Brudno for more than two years in Son Tay Prison Camp. They "talked" incessantly by tapping on the wall in a code.
"He was very young, very intense, very intelligent," Swindle remembers. "He had a degree in aerospace engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Al Brudno wanted to be an astronaut."
Swindle said Brudno hated his communist captors and constantly searched for ways to thwart them or ridicule them. "He was a little guy so he used guile and cunning to outwit the guards," Swindle added. He was also one of the best at sending hidden messages in the few letters he was permitted to write home.
A year ago Swindle urged Bob Brudno, Al's brother, to ask the Air Force to investigate Al Brudno's death and add his name to the Wall. There was a thorough investigation, and the Air Force found that it had not done right by Al Brudno. He had been cut loose upon his return from Hanoi, without the support or counseling that is now routine for all returning POWs - routine now BECAUSE of Al Brudno's death.
"Al came home with mortal wounds," Swindle says. "His suicide was a result of deep wounds that were both physical and mental. I know of no one more entitled to a place on that Wall than Al Brudno."
The Air Force approved it, and forwarded it to the Department of Defense, which normally accedes to the recommendations of the services and sends the approved name to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund for engraving.
That should have been that. But the executive director of the VVMF and one of the co-founders of the organization that built the memorial, former Army grunt Jan Scruggs, decided to go public with his opposition to adding Brudno's name to the Wall.
Scruggs hit the Internet and in e-mails called the decision of the Air Force "preposterous." He declared that this act would create a "new and broad criteria" and make it necessary to add the names of at least 20,000 other Vietnam veterans who took their own lives after the war.
"This decision by (the Department of Defense) threatens the integrity and historical interpretation of the Wall," Scruggs wrote. He postulated that the act of putting Brudno's name on the memorial would somehow encourage veterans to come and kill themselves there.
Scruggs is wrong, of course. First, there is no change in the criteria. If, upon investigation, one of the services decides to place a name on the wall and the Department of Defense endorses the decision, then it is the VVMF's job - and Jan Scruggs' job - to engrave the name on the Wall. Period.
The name of Edward Alan Brudno DESERVES to be on the Wall, among the 58,335 other American servicemen who either died in Vietnam, or afterward, of their wounds. The names of suicides are already there, if they died in Vietnam. Al Brudno just managed to make it home before he bled out.
Al Brudno took everything the North Vietnamese dished out and beat them at their own game for seven and a half years. He came home to a fine welcome, and the cheers of the crowds, but when the crowds went home and the POW family split up, there was no one there to help him deal with all that he had suffered - the torture, the isolation, the loss of the best part of his youth.
Welcome home, good and faithful soldier. Welcome home.
(c) 2004, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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------------------------------------------------------------ Out of every 100 men, ten shouldn't even be there, Eighty are just targets, Nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back." - Hericletus, circa 500 BC ----------------------------------------------------------- 
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Seasoned Vet
 
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Ok, so how many other Vietnam Vets who committed suicide shortly after returning home are we going to add to the wall? 
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Seasoned Vet
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I have always thought this was a case by case issue. Are all 'Nam suicide's deserving of a place on "The Wall". I remember a time when we did not speak of "The wall" as no one wanted to fund " Just another war memorial", until it was privately funded by the veterans and their loved ones. The American Government could not decide on giving any money to this Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, but the movement had a life of its own and it was like the snowball. Now we have to ask the Government to apply another name to the "wall". There are over (Gestimation) 20,000 suicide's after 'Nam, and still this war lives on inside the generation that served in it, or thought they had evaded it.
------------------------------------------------------------ Out of every 100 men, ten shouldn't even be there, Eighty are just targets, Nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back." - Hericletus, circa 500 BC -----------------------------------------------------------
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Regular Joe
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If one dies because of Nam, put the name on the Wall. It's ours.
"A citizen who takes up arms, is no longer a civilian".
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Keep the Peace and Be of Good Behavior
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I find this to be something that should be ultimately decided by those that were in Vietnam...but just some things to consider.
There were apparantly 20,000 soldier suicides shortly following the war. So we add those names to the wall. However, this opens up a can of worms by saying that a mental hardship caused by the war that leads to death (even by ones own hand) is qualifying for the wall.
So what if a soldier, mentally devastated,
-Turns to alcoholism? When it eventually kills him, do we add that name to the wall?
-Turns to drug abuse? When it eventually kills him, do we add that name to the wall?
-Kills himself tommorrow, citing the Vietnam war as the cause? Do we add him?
-started smoking in Vietnam to cope with stress. (a leading reason why smokers smoke) Do we add them when they die of lung cancer?
On the non self inflicted side...
-What if a soldier dies today of cancer. Could we not assume that maybe it was agent orange? Do we add him to the wall?
Aren't these all peripherally connected to the Vietnam War?
The point is, if the limits are extended, where do they end? And what is the reasoning behind that cut off. Currently the wall is for those that physically died in Vietnam. If you extend those limits, it would seem to me that you could add hundreds of thousands of names.
Like I said, its up to the vets of that era in my opinion, and these are just some things to ponder.
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Detachment Sergeant
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Vo, you make many excellent points in possible circumstances under which one might be added to the wall. But in the case that started this thread, I think the man has every right to be recognized. What sucks is spending 7 1/2 years in captivity and then ending it after being freed. As has been stated, nearly every case would have to be reviewed prior to inclusion on the wall. My understanding is that the wall is to honor those that died in combat during the war. If the war killed his mind, then he deserves to be on the wall.
 ALWAYS OUT FRONT
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Strac Trooper
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Any Nam POW should have a place on the Wall ,others if it was a result of the war they should start another section for them ,not adding them on the wall of those that died in country
 Drive On
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Hard Charger
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