BITTERSWEET CEREMONY ETCHES 24 NAMES TO VIETNAM WALL

SNOW CUTS SHORT VETERANS DAY SERVICE AT ARLINGTON

Nine years after Nicholas Franzer died in a Florida hospital of injuries he had suffered in Vietnam, his name and 23 others were officially added to the black granite wall of names of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial yesterday at a solemn Veterans Day ceremony capped by tears and snow.

For his mother, Alvina Franzer, 71, and his brother, David, 44, who also served in the U.S. Army but did not go to Vietnam, the ceremony was a bittersweet end to their struggle to have the 29-year-old soldier's name included on the wall.

Their 18-month effort included sending dozens of letters to top Army officials and enlisting the help of their local American Legion Ladies Auxiliary. The family hired a lawyer to search for documents to prove that Franzer, who was paralyzed after he stepped on a land mine in Vietnam in 1970 and died in a Margate Hospital eight years later, had died as the result of the war injuries.

Much of that was forgotten yesterday as the 24 names were read before a crowd of several hundred people who had gathered at the memorial in a blinding snowstorm.

"As a family, we felt there wasn't any hope," said David Franzer, a table factory worker from Coldwater, Ohio, near Dayton. "But now we feel more peaceful. We feel someone cares, and his name is where it belongs."

"My son was very courageous," said Alvina Franzer, brushing a tear from her cheek. "He would have felt honored {that} his name was placed on the wall."

The 24 names bring to 58,156 the number chiseled on the memorial wall, a roll call of Americans dead or presumed dead as a result of the Vietnam War.

The memorial service, which included a moving rendition of "God Bless America" by the music group Alabama, drew two big-name speakers, Bob Hope, who regularly visited U.S. troops stationed overseas, and "Nightline" host Ted Koppel. "We hope and pray these men will become a symbol for the insanity of war," Hope said to a round of applause. "Let's hope the price they paid is a lesson for the future."

At Arlington National Cemetery, where the ground was whiter than the tombstones yesterday, the cold and snow forced the traditional program to be cut back. Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger laid the presidential wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns and a soldier played taps.

The weather kept away a crowd that had been expected to be in the thousands. But some determined veterans came anyway, accompanied by friends and relatives.

John Cucco, 40, dressed in Army fatigues and a hat decorated with medals, came from Long Island, N.Y.

"It's my first trip. The time wasn't right before," he said, as he left Arlington and headed for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

At the memorial, the ceremony that in previous years has drawn as many as 5,000 people attracted only several hundred yesterday. But U.S. Park Police officials said about 1,000 people visited the wall during the day to find names of loved ones or to leave flowers and other mementoes.

"The ceremony was even more wonderful because so many people have never seen the wall in the snow," said Jan Scruggs, president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which campaigned to establish the memorial, sponsored the ceremony and worked to have the 24 names added to the wall.

"We didn't care about the snow," said Ana Quinn, 66, of Thornville, Ohio, whose son's name, Robert Joseph Quinn, was added to the wall. "If those guys went through what they went through, then we can put up with a little snow."

Robert Quinn, a Marine Corps sergeant, died at age 24 from injuries he received

when one of the men in his patrol stepped on a land mine. He did not die until nine months after the accident, and his name initially was not included on the wall because he died not in Vietnam but at Bethesda Naval Hospital, his mother said. His name was added after years of efforts by his mother, two brothers and sister.

"I hollered and I yelled," Ana Quinn said. "I even told a few people that if they didn't put his name on the wall, I was going to take a hammer and chisel and put it there myself."

Ana Quinn credits a Marine Corps officer, whose name she couldn't remember, with finally having the name placed on the monument. Two days ago, she, her daughter and Doris Perry, Robert Quinn's high school teacher, visited the memorial for the first time and saw his name, took pictures and made several rubbings.

"We stood there and talked to him," Quinn said.

Staff writer Patrice Gaines-Carter contributed to this report.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.