Vietnam War

I get press releases about new books all the time. This one arrived the other day: "A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers ... a fly-on-the-wall, insider look at the mad house that Lehman became. It will reveal never-before-told stories about the dark characters who ruled Lehman, refusing to heed warnings that the company was headed for an iceberg." The author is Lawrence G. McDonald, until its collapse "one of Lehman's most consistently profitable traders" and an "eyewitness" to the brewing mess inside the investment bank.

HEYWARD ISHAM, 82 Key Cold War diplomat Heyward Isham, 82, a career Foreign Service officer and a Russian scholar who held key posts during the Cold War and the conflict in Vietnam, died Thursday at a hospital near his Long Island home. He had complications from an infection and pulmonary fibrosis. During the Vietnam War, Isham served in the early 1970s as a leader of the U.S. delegation to the Paris peace talks and was directly involved in negotiations with the Vietnamese. The talks led to the accords that ended direct U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.

Capt. Arthur N. Rogers III, a highly decorated disabled Vietnam War veteran and a former member of the Maryland State Board of Examiners of Nursing Home Administrators who earlier had been chairman of the Baltimore County Board of Recreation and Parks, died in his sleep Friday at his Towson home. He was 67. Captain Rogers was born and raised in Baltimore. After graduating from City College in 1959, he earned a bachelor's degree in 1964 from what is now Morgan State University. In 1973, he earned a master's degree in secondary education from what is now Towson University, and six years later earned a master's degree in geography and environmental planning, also from Towson.

Col. James Curtis Burris, a highly decorated career Army officer who fought in the Vietnam War, died Nov. 13 at his Havre de Grace home of cancers related to exposure to Agent Orange. He was 78. Colonel Burris, who was born and raised in Tulsa, Okla., graduated from Tulsa Central High School in 1948. Born into a military family, Colonel Burris was the grandson of two Civil War veterans and the son of a World War I veteran. He enlisted in the Army in 1948 and was selected to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., from which he graduated with a bachelor's degree in engineering in 1954.

John W. Ripley, a retired Marine Corps colonel and a renowned hero of the Vietnam War, was found dead at his home in Annapolis over the weekend, family members said. A cause of death for Ripley, who had undergone two liver transplants, had not been determined yesterday. He was 69. A Virginia native, Colonel Ripley was best known for a daring feat during the Easter Offensive of 1972, when he dangled for three hours under a bridge near the South Vietnamese city of Dong Ha to attach 500 pounds of explosives to the span, ultimately destroying it. His action, under fire while going back and forth for materials, is thought to have thwarted an onslaught by 20,000 enemy troops and was the subject of a book, The Bridge at Dong Ha, by John Grider Miller.

Al Hernandez screens phone calls to his Ellicott City home these days because cancer surgery nearly destroyed a muscle in his right thigh two years ago and he tires of rushing, cane in hand, to grab the handset. Callers hear the Vietnam veteran's taped instructions about leaving a message, followed by a cheery "Semper Fi!" and a rousing recording of a few bars of the Marine Corps hymn. While his sign-off is the abbreviated form of semper fidelis, which is Latin for "always faithful," it would have been easy for the 58-year-old Marine to lose faith after a series of health setbacks left him unable to work and in considerable pain, he said.

Bernard "Butch" Edgar Stickell Jr., a Vietnam War veteran who was awarded the Purple Heart, died of heart failure Aug. 17 at Veteran Affairs Medical Center in Baltimore. The Pasadena resident was 60. After graduating from Glen Burnie High School, Mr. Stickell served in the Army as a combat medic, achieving the rank of specialist fifth class. In addition to the Purple Heart, he received the National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, Combat Infantryman's Badge, Vietnam Campaign Medal and Army Commendation Medal.