Dying vet pays emotional visit
to Vietnam MemorialMarch 30, 1996
Web posted at: 9:15 p.m. ESTWASHINGTON (CNN) -- "When I leave here today, I will leave a piece of my heart."
As Robert Plato spoke those words, he was on a mission, perhaps his last. The Vietnam vet is dying of cancer and wanted to see the memorial to the war in which he fought three tours. Saturday he got his wish.
With his sisters and other family members by his side, the gaunt face of Richard Plato reflected his struggle to get here as he reached out to touch the long black wall of the Vietnam Memorial.
After pausing near the names of the men he fought alongside, Plato bowed his head and let the tears come. "I love it, it's beautiful," he said.
The 50-year-old vet was once a sturdy man who made his living trucking. His sister, Sheila Meyer, who spearheaded the tedious effort to help her brother reach the memorial, says that they were raised to be tough by their parents. And Plato certainly had to be tough to complete three tours in Vietnam from 1968 to 1970.
Now, he is down to 114 pounds; cancer has riddled his body. It first appeared in his lungs, and has since spread to his back, stomach, liver, and pancreas.
But his sister says he's still tough. Seeing the names of his fallen comrades has kept him going, his sister said. Mrs. Meyer said he survived a bout with pneumonia when doctors gave him little hope.
"We took him in on a Thursday and they said he wouldn't make it to Wednesday. That was two weeks ago," she told The Associated Press before the trip.
The war still haunts Plato. Mrs. Meyer said that each night during the fever her brother was back in the jungles of South Vietnam.
"When he was in deliriums with the pneumonia he'd talk about 'the little man, we have to get him.' He can't fall asleep in his chair without having a nightmare," Meyers said. "We're hoping this will be a release."
And maybe it has. By the wall Saturday he said, "The good Lord brought me here safely ... I can rest a whole lot better."
Vietnam was a war America did not win, and the men and women who fought there were not welcomed home with parades. But Plato's sister Sheila sees this day as a kind of hero's welcome.
"I remember when I was a little girl and he was going off to Vietnam and people would ask me what my brother was like and I'd say, 'He's 10 feet tall,' and he was, to me.
"He's always been my hero."
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