Wisconsin Vietnam War dead honored at Paper Wall in Green Bay

From the Green Bay Press Gazette: Wisconsin Vietnam War dead honored at Paper Wall in Green Bay
Michael Schumacher and Mike Weaver were equals — as children in Wisconsin, and as men in Vietnam.

They attended the same Janesville high school, served in the U.S. Army in 1968 and 1969, and returned from Southeast Asia at virtually the same time. Weaver walked off the airplane. Schumacher was carried out in a coffin.
"He and I came home together," said Weaver, who now lives in Kaukauna. "I was the Army escort at his funeral. I was the one who handed the flag to his mother."

More than 40 years after Schumacher's death in February 1969, the lives of former schoolmates intersected again when Weaver visited The Paper Wall, a memorial to the 1,244 Wisconsin residents killed in Vietnam. The memorial will remain on display this week on the second floor of the Brown County Central Library, 515 Pine St., in downtown Green Bay, where it has been throughout the summer.

The wall — inspired in part by the granite memorial that honors the Vietnam War dead in Washington — is a collection of newspaper articles about the Wisconsinites who gave their lives during the conflict. Librarians throughout the state collaborated to find and duplicate newspaper articles about virtually every resident who made the ultimate sacrifice. The wall first was displayed in 2010 during the LZ Lambeau homecoming event for Vietnam veterans.

The stories, organized by the county in which each soldier lived, are displayed on panels of the wall. Brown County lost 47 residents in Vietnam. Janesville lost 18. Larger communities, such as Milwaukee County, lost several times that number.
Almost every soldier is represented. And the headlines can be heart-breaking: "Dies in Vietnam on his birthday." "Parents given medals earned by soldier son."

Mary Jane Herber, local history and genealogy librarian for Brown County, said she became involved with the project to provide soldiers, their loved ones and their communities a more complete picture of the sacrifice.

"We wanted to show the potential, the loss of potential, that our communities suffered," she said. "We felt we could do something that was more complete."
For Weaver, who served as an Army medic and continues to honor fallen soldiers by volunteering with an organization called Patriot Guard Riders, the Paper Wall keeps the memories of his fellow servicemen and women alive.

"It's an affirmation of who they were," Weaver said, "and that they have not been forgotten."