Vietnam

William E. "Bud" Crosland Sr., a retired career Army officer who served in Vietnam and Korea, died Jan. 22 of heart failure at Mercy Medical Center. He was 80. He was born and raised in Bennettsville, S.C., where he graduated from Bennettsville High School in 1947. After graduating in 1952 from The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., he was commissioned an Army officer. He served in the late 1960s in Vietnam and again in 1972, when he helped to oversee the withdrawal of South Korean troops from Vietnam.

William M. "Pops" Palmer Jr., a retired career Marine Corps officer and Vietnam veteran who later became a commercial pilot and educator, died Tuesday at his Sykesville home of complications after colon surgery. He was 65. William Merrill Palmer Jr., the son of an insurance salesman and a Stewart's department store manager, was born in Baltimore and raised in Arbutus. He was a 1963 graduate of Polytechnic Institute and began his college studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology before being appointed to the Naval Academy.

Donald Phillip Townsend, a highly decorated Vietnam War veteran who became a licensed thoroughbred horse breeder, died Nov. 29 from complications after blocked blood vessel surgery at St. Joseph Medical Center. The longtime Keymar resident was 61. Mr. Townsend, the son of a stationary engineer and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised in Highlandtown. After graduating from Patterson Park High School in 1967, Mr. Townsend was drafted into the Army in 1968 and served as an infantryman with the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam.

W.R. Grace & Co. has opened a new manufacturing facility in Vietnam as part of its strategy to expand in emerging markets. The new facility was opened by the company's construction products division in the city of Hai Duong, near Hanoi. Grace celebrated the grand opening of the plant Wednesday. The 30,000-square-foot facility will manufacture cement additives and concrete admixtures. It will also house a sales and technical service office and a quality-control lab. Columbia-based Grace has also recently opened manufacturing plants in Chongqing, China, and Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

John M. Vernarelli, who served in Korea and Vietnam as a military police officer and later had a second career as a chef, died Aug. 14 of lung cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The Perry Hall resident was 80. Mr. Vernarelli, one of 14 children of Italian immigrants, was born at home on East Chase Street. When he was 16, he tried to enlist in the Army, until military authorities learned his age and he was sent home from Fort Meade to Baltimore. "The next year, on March 27, 1947 — one day after his 17th birthday — he enlisted," said a nephew, Mark Vernarelli, who is a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety and Correction Services.

With the revelation that Richard Blumenthal, the U.S. Senate candidate in Connecticut, received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War, and with the country now involved in two wars, the draft has become a subject of renewed interest. Mr. Blumenthal apparently did not oppose the war on principle. He seems to have requested the deferments for two reasons: He did not want to take the chance of putting himself at risk in the war zone, and he did not want his blossoming career interrupted.

Upon request, Alfred Goodman Sr. would pull out his medals and show them to anyone interested in learning about his stint in the Army. Goodman, 61, lost both his legs fighting during the Vietnam War, but he cherished his time in the service. "He was proud," said Edward Carter, a longtime family friend. "And he just showed me his Purple Heart" on Wednesday. Goodman, his son by the same name and a 19-year-old woman were killed early Thursday morning in a fire in the 3500 block of Woodbrook Ave., a block away from Mondawmin Mall in West Baltimore.