Gold Star Father Sparked UW-Milwaukee Photo Search

Andrew Johnson stood quietly in the front of a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee classroom with a poster that read, “Help Find the last 18,” as students filed in for their next class.

Johnson, a small newspaper publisher, has taken on an incredible task—finding a photo for every person who was killed in the Vietnam War from the state of Wisconsin.

This is a nationwide effort as volunteers in all 50 states search for photos of deceased Vietnam veterans whose names appear on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial located in Washington, D.C.

The goal is to honor the 58,300 veterans members by humanizing them in a new education center across the street from the wall, which is expected begin being built in 2019. Each veteran’s photo will be projected in that center on their birthday.

The Vietnam Memorial Fund has struggled to find a lot of the photos across the country, mainly due to a 1973 fire that destroyed six million records—many belonging to Vietnam veterans—in St. Louis.

Johnson joined the effort about a year ago and has made it his personal mission to find the remaining photos in Wisconsin. He wants to make sure our Vietnam veterans are remembered because they were there for his family when his son, Lt. David Johnson, died in Afghanistan.

“His last words were, ‘Don’t despair and tell my mom and dad I love him,’ with that my son died,” Johnson said.

Those final moments still resonate with Johnson after his son’s death in 2012.

“After he was killed, the Vietnam veterans in particular, the Patriot Guard, took such good care of our family,” Johnson said. “I really took notice of that and learned the Vietnam veterans faces project and they needed help.”

There were about 450 photos still missing out of the 1,161 photos of veterans from Wisconsin, at the time Johnson stepped in. When the UW-Milwaukee class first became involved in the project in February, 64 were missing. Now, when Johnson visited the class in late April, only 18 photos remained unfound, thanks in large part to UWM journalism students, and others, who were able to find many of the photos in the last month and a half (by mid May, the list was down to 1 missing).

Finding the photos originally started as a class project, but now it has now developed into more than that. Instead, it has become a learning experience for the students. They have learned valuable tips on investigative reporting, and have received a better understanding of the Vietnam soldiers that were killed in battle.

This alone has caused students to dig deeper in search of the photos.

“It was really inspirational,” UWM journalism student Jordyn T. Noennig said. “It really pushed me to find my person. I was even more excited when I found my photo of my Vietnam soldier.”

The students’ work on this project hasn’t gone unnoticed, as it has developed into a statewide story. Many are amazed by the amount of work and time they have put in to find the missing photos.

That is why Johnson and his wife decided to make the trip down from Mayville, Wis. to speak with the students in the UWM journalism class and offer their personal thank you for everything they have done.

The students and Johnson will continue to search for the photos until no photos remaining missing in Wisconsin.  The goal is to find all of the photos in Wisconsin by Memorial Day, and with the help of the students, Johnson is confident that goal will be reached.

The work these UWM journalism students have done to find photos of Vietnam veterans is incredible, and it will be something that they will never forget. These students are preserving history for future generations to come.

“A soldier never dies unless he is forgotten,” Johnson said. “So we must remember our soldiers.”