Vietnam Wall misspelled name

Vietnam Wall misspelled name

Vietnam Wall misspelled name, Sgt. Stephen Hiett Phillips was 23 and about to become a father when he died, two days after arriving in Vietnam.Phillips, who listed Springfield as his home of record, was reported killed in action July 18, 1965. He was felled by small arms fire in an unidentified province in South Vietnam, government records say.
But two soldiers from Phillips' regiment say part of the record has a fundamental flaw.

Larry Thompson said, "They spelled his name wrong."

The mistake literally is carved in stone.

On the black granite wall at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., Phillips' first name is inscribed as "SHEPHEN."

The error, repeated on various websites and copies of the Wall, appears to stem from a list of Vietnam war dead dating to January 1967.

"One doesn't honor a person by misspelling their name," said Pete Neumann, who has contacted a variety of federal agencies and nonprofits in an effort to correct the error.

So far, the effort has been a "total, absolute frustration,"he said. "I'm just trying to do the right thing for a fellow soldier ...

"Maybe they can't buff out the 'H' and sandblast a 'T' in its place -- I don't know enough about masonry -- but at least acknowledge it on the tribute card that