Vietnam

Ronald A.J. Wilson, a retired accounting executive and Vietnam veteran, died June 30 from complications of pneumonia at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. The former Roland Park resident was 67. The son of a chemist and hospital volunteer, he was born and raised in Port Washington, N.Y., where he graduated from high school. After earning a bachelor's degree in 1966 from Harvard University, Mr. Wilson enlisted in the Marine Corps and served one tour of duty in Vietnam.

No idea in American society is more pervasive than the notion that we all owe a debt of gratitude to the young men and women who have volunteered to fight our foreign wars. This nearly universal belief flows from a sense of collective guilt that the veterans of our previous Asian adventure in Vietnam were not welcomed home with appreciation for their sacrifices and were somehow held responsible for America's first losing war. This attitude was especially unfair since many of the participants in that conflict were draftees who had little choice about their service.

Herman G. "Hank" Tillman Jr., a retired Air Force colonel and pilot who flew in World War II, Korea and Vietnam and was one of Maryland's most decorated veterans, died Sunday of liver failure at his Chester home. He was 89. He was born in his immigrant grandparents' Anne Arundel County farmhouse, and later moved with his family to a home at Pontiac Avenue and Sixth Street in Brooklyn. After graduating from Polytechnic Institute in 1940, he attended the Johns Hopkins University at night and worked at Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.'s engineering department during the day. "As a kid, he was fascinated with flying.

Nearly 40 years ago, a haunting photograph of a naked Vietnamese girl running in anguish after being severely burned in a napalm bomb attack on her village became an iconic image of the Vietnam War. But most who have seen the Pulitzer Prize-winning shot probably haven't heard the obscure song it inspired more than three decades later, says Hugo Keesing, a self-taught music historian. "The Girl in the Picture (Napalm Girl)," released by Yanah in 2004, is one of more than 300 famous and not-so-famous songs and spoken-word tracks about the war that are included in a 13-CD anthology assembled by Keesing, a Columbia resident.

Etna A. Weinhold, a former combat nurse who served with the Army in Vietnam and later spent four decades at Greater Baltimore Medical Center as clinical manager of its postpartum units, died Nov. 10 of cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. She was 67 and had lived in Towson. "She will forever be the needle, which for 40 years wove the tapestry of who GBMC is to our community, proclaiming by her very breath: in all we do the patient always comes first," wrote chaplain J. Joseph Hart, executive director of spiritual support services and executive director of GBMC's Center for Spiritual Support Training.

Brig. Gen. Raymond J. Winkel Jr., a retired career Army officer and a Vietnam War veteran who was chairman of the physics department at West Point for more than two decades, died Aug. 30 of cancer at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda. He was 65. The son of a civil engineer and a homemaker, General Winkel was born in Baltimore and raised in Gardenville. He attended Polytechnic Institute and was 17 when appointed to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

George Gilbert Ganjon, a retired Carroll County farmer who was a founder of the Downtown Farmers Market, died of kidney failure Aug. 1 at Dove House in Westminster. He was 82. Born in Baltimore, he grew up near the Hollins Market in the southwestern section of the city. He was a 1947 Catonsville High School graduate. He met his future wife, Alvina "Sis" Jackson, at the Cross Street Market in South Baltimore, where she, her parents and brothers ran produce and flower stalls.

Edward Charles "Ned" Wilson III, a retired Aberdeen Proving Ground information technology specialist and former board member of Maryland Life Magazine, died June 17 of prostate cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. He was 64. The son of farmers, Mr. Wilson was born in Baltimore and raised on the family farm in Darlington, where he eventually built a home and spent his entire life. After graduating from McDonogh School in 1964, he earned a bachelor's degree in 1968 in English from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa. Drafted into the Army in 1968, Mr. Wilson was sent to Phu Bai, Vietnam, after completing training in preventive medicine at Fort Sam Houston in Texas.