Fostorian served alongside notable Vietnam vet

FOSTORIA — Many of the people who visited the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall while it was in Fostoria had a story to tell about one or more of the more than 58,000 names on it. Fostoria resident Ralph Koerper, a U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam War, was, in a way, able to fulfill a vow during an interview on Saturday as people walked through the south parking lot of Fostoria Junior/Senior High School to see the wall and the Eyes of Freedom Gulf War memorial. "I said, 'Someday, I'm going to tell the world about you,'" Koerper, with a laugh, recalled telling Dwaine U. McGriff. McGriff's story certainly has been told before, particularly when his name was added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., in 2003. That made him the oldest person to have his name etched into the memorial's black granite. But McGriff was far more than a name on a wall to Koerper. McGriff died in 1999 at age 63 after having lived for 28 years with serious injuries sustained in South Vietnam in September 1970. Koerper was able to call him a friend. In fact, Koerper was working on cutting down jungle vegetation in support of an infantry unit before a North Vietnamese attack changed McGriff's life. The men were with the Army's 984th Engineering Battalion, clearing land for a road to be built. McGriff, at 35, was on his second tour in Vietnam. Koerper, who went to Vietnam in December 1969, was three months from leaving. "He came out to the field and said, 'Ralph, what's going on?'" said Koerper, who was among area veterans helping to host the weekend event in Fostoria. "(McGriff said), 'I want to go see how this works.' We got on the APC (armored personnel carrier) and went out. Then he got one of the dozers. He was a maintenance engineer, and at the end of the day's cut we were loading back up. I took the dozer back to what they called an NDP — a night defensive position. They lined them up like the old wagon trains. ... He got on the back of a truck and was doing paperwork. We got small-arms fire and mortar rockets. One hit the truck and took (McGriff's left) leg off all the way up to the lower torso." The grenade didn't explode until it had rolled away, or McGriff surely would have been killed. McGriff also sustained a number of injuries to his body that would plague him for the rest of his life. He spent a good amount of the rest of his life in hospitals. "They flew him to Cu Chi (a U.S. Army Hospital in South Vietnam)," Koerper said. "Then, I sort of lost contact with him. I knew his brother owned a trucking company in Cullman, Alabama. Being in trucking all my life, I stopped and I asked, 'Do you know Dwaine McGriff? I served in Vietnam with him.' He said, 'Yeah, he's over there, sitting in his wheelchair.' I walked over and he looked up and said, 'Koerper!' I said, 'That's me. I was with you.' He said, 'Yes, you were.'"I met his wife, and then when I started going to the reunions for that company, he'd be there and we became friends throughout our lives." The wall in Washington was dedicated in 1982, and names were simultaneously added by the National Park Service and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund after deceased veterans were confirmed by the Department of Defense. McGriff is memorialized on Panel 7W, Line 51 of the wall in Washington. NOTES: Among Sunday's visitors to the memorials was Irene Scheifer, an Attica resident who makes a practice of cutting the stars out of discarded U.S. flags and distributing them at patriotic events. She was able to renew acquaintances with Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall manager Doc Russo. They met when the traveling wall was at Seneca East High School two years ago. ... Russo was complimentary of how the Fostoria event was organized, and David Stultz, who coordinated the effort to bring the Vietnam Traveling Wall to the city, said the wall's stay in Fostoria was an overall success. "I'm just very pleased with the way things turned out and grateful for all the community support and from the surrounding areas and, especially now, for the (Fostoria High School) football team to come out and help tear down," he said. "So, I think it's been a great event for the whole city."