1st Lt. Russell Lee Harris

Growing up in Lawrence in the 1950s, Russell Lee Harris was a quiet boy. As the oldest of four siblings, he became a leader at an early age.

His family moved from Lawrence to Salt Lake City the summer before Harris entered the eighth grade. While in high school, Harris was a cheerleader, on the track team and held several class officer positions.

His family hoped Harris would come back to Lawrence and attend college at Kansas University, but with the Vietnam War raging, he decided to stay in Utah. He attended the University of Utah for one year.

“It was a period when every year you weren’t sure if you were going to be called up (to duty) or go to school for another year,” Stanley Russell said. “He was not at the top of the rung on his academics, so it worried him.

“He finally said, ‘Dad, I can’t stand sitting on the fence. You wouldn’t be upset with me if I went to Officer Candidate School?'”

Stanley Harris, a World War II veteran, told his son he would not be upset.

The 19-year-old Harris left college and went to Fort Benning in Georgia. He received his commission and was sent to Vietnam in March 1968.

On Feb. 11, 1969, 30 days before he was scheduled to return to the United States, Harris was killed during a mortar attack. He is buried in Memorial Park Cemetery in Lawrence.

When Stanley Harris retired in 1985, he and his wife, Shirley, moved back to Lawrence.

The addition of their son’s name to the Douglas County Vietnam Memorial is the culmination of 17 years of work. Because Salt Lake City was considered his home of record, Harris was left off the Kansas state and Douglas County memorials. He was added to the state memorial in August 2003.

“I think I’ve accomplished what I set out to do in 1987 when I started asking questions on Memorial Day,” Stanley Harris said.

And Stanley Harris believes his son has finally received the recognition he deserved.

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“Of course, (the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks) changed the thinking of the American people,” Stanley Harris said. “All of a sudden they realized that those kids in Vietnam, whether they were doing right or wrong, were doing what their government leaders asked them to do.”

Army Master Sgt. Glenn E. Nicholson

Despite not being a native Kansan, Glenn E. Nicholson loved his adopted state.

“He just had a fondness for Kansas,” said his son Scott Nicholson. “His intent was to come back from Vietnam to Lawrence and run for sheriff.”

Nicholson was killed in action on May 5, 1968. He was 21 days away from returning to the United States.

Originally from Red Bud, Ill., Nicholson moved to Lawrence in 1963 to become a ROTC instructor at Kansas University. He stayed at KU until 1965. Despite already being in the military 19 years, Nicholson decided to go to Vietnam out of a sense of duty.

“His reason for going was pretty simple,” Scott Nicholson said. “He was career Army and he was watching a lot of 17-, 18-, 19-year-old kids going off to war.

“Here he was in his late 30s with quite a bit of experience as a drill sergeant and with armor. He decided that it made sense, he needed to go.”

As a member of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, Nicholson was in charge of a platoon of five tanks and 40 men.

Scott Nicholson was 3 when his father died. Everything he has learned about his father has come from conversations with people who knew him.

“I wanted to know the good and the bad,” Scott Nicholson said.

Scott Nicholson’s sister, Judith Dietz, was 9 when their father died. She said that he was a loving father and that several members of her family had entered the military because of the example he set.

“Everybody was really proud of my dad,” Dietz said. “Going into the military was something everybody wanted to do.”

Nicholson is buried in Memorial Park Cemetery in Lawrence, but was left off the Douglas County memorial because his family was living at Schilling Air Force Base in Salina when he died.

Army Capt. Loyd Meredith Willson

Loyd Meredith Willson was quiet and artistic, but competitive to the core. During his college years at KU, he was a championship fencer, an accomplished pianist and directed two of his fraternity’s Rock Chalk Revue skits.

Willson, the nephew of the Meredith Willson who wrote “The Music Man,” also was committed to the Army. He was an ROTC leader and intended to be a career soldier.

His career was cut short, however, when he was killed Feb. 22, 1968, in Vietnam at age 27. He was killed as a company commander and was awarded a posthumous Silver Star and Purple Heart.

Former Kappa Sigma fraternity brother Fred Green said Willson was a born and bred Kansan, but his name was left off the KU and Douglas County memorials because he listed his home of record as Dallas when he went to Vietnam. He is buried in Dallas.

After graduating from KU in 1962, Willson went to Airborne and Ranger schools and served in Panama, Green said. His wife, also a KU graduate, and daughter went with him and were living in Texas when Willson died.

Because his mother lived in Lawrence while Willson attended college, officials at the Army Reserve Center decided his name should be added to the memorial.

“The guys who were in school with him, most of us were off in the service at that point,” said Green, a retired Air Force colonel. “Nobody bothered to tell Douglas County or the university.”

Willson went to Iola High School and graduated from KU with a degree in sociology.