Local man in Vietnam to accept award [In Hanoi]

[DonaldN]

http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi...7/08_26-37/CAN
Local man in Vietnam to accept award [In Hanoi]
Published August 26, 2007

Time marches on, and things change. Nothing says this saying is true more than an event last week in Vietnam. Jan Scruggs of Annapolis, the founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, accepted the Medal for Peace and Friendship Among Nations on Monday at the Press Club in Hanoi.

The medal was presented to the VVMF by the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations, which gives it to organizations of the highest merit after years of significant work in Vietnam. The presenter is an umbrella organization of more than 50 bilateral friendship organizations of Vietnamese people with people of other countries.

VVMF has operated a mine-action and humanitarian program called Project RENEW in Quang Tri Province since 2000. It removes land mines and unexploded ordnance, provides mine awareness education, makes health care available for land mine victims and gives them income assistance to help them to become self-supporting.

Jan and his longtime friend Jimmy Mosconis of Apalachicola, Fla. who was his platoon sergeant in the 199th Light Infantry Brigade during the Vietnam War, returned yesterday to the location in South Vietnam where they were both wounded 38 years ago.

"I wanted to take this trip with Jimmy, to see the village, to talk to people who might remember our unit," Jan said in a press release.

He wasn't sure if they would be able to find the exact place, as the unit was pretty deep in the jungle. But he expected to find the villages that were near them and talk to the people, who he recalled were all very nice.

Their visit to Xuan Loc will be a side trip from the delegation to Vietnam that Jan has been leading since Aug. 19. The group went from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City (the old Saigon), where they met with Vietnamese officials, toured areas of historic interest and inspected the Project RENEW operations. The tour wraps up today.

Jan has been back to Vietnam several times; this trip is his sixth for the VVMF.

His desire to remember the names of those he served with and those who died there motivated him to create the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. This year is the memorial's 25th anniversary.

The VVMF has put out a call nationwide for volunteers to help read the 59,256 names inscribed on the memorial in the days leading up to the 25th anniversary. Nearly 2,000 people are needed to help with the project, only the fourth time all the names have been read at one time.

From Nov. 7 to 10 a platform will be erected in front of the Wall, and the names will be read for up to 19 hours a day, with stops in the middle of the night.