Two Auxvasse men died in the Vietnam War, and a woman in Hawaii is looking for their photographs.
When Janna Hoehn, a resident of Maui, visited Washington, D.C., six years ago with her husband, she decided she wanted a memento of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.
"Even though I never knew anyone killed in Vietnam, I wanted an rubbing of one of the names," she said. "I approached the wall and chose a name - Gregory John Crossman - an MIA."
When Hoehn returned home, she tried to research Crossman and find his family but was stymied for six months until her cousin, a family historian, stepped in to help.
"Six weeks later, she found a college photo of Gregory," Hoehn said.
Two years later, she saw a news story about a project, "Faces Never Forgotten," for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.
"The goal was to put a face with every name that is etched on the wall," she said. "I immediately sent in the photo I had of Gregory Crossman. Five days later, I received an email from Jan Scruggs, the founder and president of the Vietnam Wall. He thanked me for sending the photo; it was the first for this hero."
Scruggs is a U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam and founded the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which built the memorial in Washington, D.C.
"He asked me if I could help him find the photos for the 42 Maui County fallen that were killed in Vietnam. I replied, 'it would be an honor,'" she said. "I have always hoped I could to do something for the Vietnam veterans as the way they were treated when they returned - it was disgraceful. Here was my chance."
Collecting those photos took about six months, but she did it, Hoehn said.
"Once I finished finding all the Maui County photos, I moved on to my hometown in California and found the five soldiers from my childhood home, Hemet, California," she said.
Recently, Hoehn and other volunteers have been calling newspapers around the United States asking for their help locating photos of Vietnam War soldiers who died or went missing during the conflict, she said.
"The response has been amazing," she said. "I have collected nearly 4,000 photos since May 2013."
Now she's looking for photos to go with the names of two Callaway County soldiers who fought and died in the Vietnam War. Both were from Auxvasse, she said. Frank E. Johnson was born in 1948 and died in 1969. Bill D. Poff was born in 1944 and died in 1968.
"All of these photos will be submitted to the 'Wall of Faces' online memorial with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, as well as in the future education center that will be adjacent to the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C.," she said.
She said the project included finding 58,315 photos - and 47,000 have been located.
"Putting a face with a name changes the whole dynamic of the wall," she said. "It keeps our fallen heroes' memories alive and will honor them. Our heroes' stories and sacrifice will never be forgotten."
Jim Knotts is the president and CEO of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. On Thursday, he said he had new information that has not yet been announced.
"We just received the last photo we needed for Washington state," he said. "So that's the 15th state to have a photo for every name."
Knotts said when the education center is built, the project will go up on an computerized wall.
"It will be a major exhibit, a 50-foot wide wall two stories tall, and will cycle through the photos," he said. "We have 11,000 photos to go, and it just gets harder and harder to find a lot of them."
He said photos often can be found in high school yearbooks or in old newspaper obituaries found on microfilm at local libraries.
"It's a labor of love by a lot of people," he said of the project. "We'll use any method available to us."
If anyone has any information about the two men, they can email Hoehn at [email protected], she said.
"If a name is not included and your reader wishes to look up their loved one or friends name, go to the 'Wall of Faces' and type the name in the search box," she said. "The profile will come up, and it's possible they may have a better photo than has been submitted. I do not wish for anyone to feel badly that their loved one or friend is not listed or forgotten. We will never forget any of them."
For more information or to look up a name, visit vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/.