Veterans Memorial Wall Honors MIAs and POWs

The Desert Sun - Palm Springs, CA, USA

Honoring the missing
Aldrich M. Tan • The Desert Sun • January 4, 2009

Janene Milis never met her uncle, Ralph L. Wallace.

But that didn't stop the 56-year-old Palm Desert woman from honoring him Saturday as part of a ceremony held by the Indio-based East Valley Memorials Foundation.

The group, which seeks to honor military personnel classified as missing in action or prisoners of war, erected a wall in Coachella where relatives of those lost placed plaques in their honor Saturday.

Stationed in the Coachella Valley Cemetery, 82-925 Avenue 52, the memorial wall already contains more than 300 names. It was erected about a year ago.

“It feels like he is home,” Milis said of her uncle, a native of Bellfountain, Ore. “He is home with family that can come and see him.”

Killed Dec. 7, 1941, Wallace, a member of the U.S. Navy who worked as a fireman, was among thousands of military personnel aboard the USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

His body was never recovered.

On Saturday, Milis quietly walked to the wall with her uncle's black plaque in her hands and placed it on the wall.

“I felt that these people should be picked up and accounted for like everyone else,” said Joe Zelazny, president of the East Valley Memorials Foundation.

Zelazny, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, said he understands the importance of honoring those who served their country.

He was a prisoner of war during the Battle of the Bulge on Dec. 21, 1944.

“We're like an endangered species,” he said. “When we are gone, we are gone.”

Zelazny, a part-time Indio resident, said he has had success with a similar wall of honor in Tacoma, Wash.

His search for MIA/POW troops, which started in April for that specific wall, led to 83 names within 60 days.

Wallace's plaque joins five others on the western wall of the tribute. That includes four prisoners of war, including Zelazny, and another missing-in-action soldier, U.S. Army Air Corps Staff Sgt. Floyd Hoover, who disappeared on Jan. 13, 1943, in Kiel, Germany.

Relatives of those classified as missing or prisoners of war decide what will be said on the plaques, Zelazny said.

Wallace's plaque reads: “You honored us and now we honor you forever in our hearts. Love Harry, Treva, Mary, and Janene.”

At least 20 more names will join Wallace's plaque by next month, Zelazny said.

One of those will be U.S. Army Air Corps Pfc. Herman R. Granados of La Quinta, one of the first casualties from the Coachella Valley during World War II.

Granados went missing in action in the Philippines in 1941, said his nephew Herman Granados, adjunct for American Legion Post 739 in Indio.

“This is really great,” Granados said of the tribute to POW/MIA soldiers.

Milis said it is the worst feeling knowing that her uncle's body can never return from its watery grave at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

The memorial, however, will be something tangible that her family can see to remember his sacrifice. She plans to visit the memorial “often and especially on Memorial Day.”