In Honor To A "Brother"

Family perseveres to get vet's name on Vietnam memorial

Enrique Valdez, who became a quadriplegic when his spinal cord was severed by shrapnel in Vietnam, "couldn't cough by himself" and relied on others "to press on his diaphragm to help him," his daughter Tina recalls.

The Santa Fe veteran also suffered bouts of pneumonia "due to his war injury. The paralysis affected his lungs," she says.

So when the former Marine succumbed at age 56 to pneumonia in 1994 — nearly 25 years after he was wounded — his children asked to have his name added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. After all, his death certificate said his passing was directly attributable to his spinal cord injury, which he suffered in combat......