Woman seeks photos of Utah's fallen soldiers for Vietnam memorial

SALT LAKE CITY — A woman from Hawaii has taken it upon herself to find photos of every single soldier who died during the Vietnam War. Utah is her next target.

Starting with her Hawaiian home, Janna Hoehn has been systematically working through each state to obtain photos of fallen soldiers for the Faces Never Forgotten project. The Wall of Faces is run by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, the same organization that supports the iconic wall in Washington, D.C.

Of the 364 young men from Utah who died during the Vietnam war, 85 are missing photos. Hoehn needs help to find them.

"It's real, true detective work," she said.

The complete list of Utahns who need photos is included at the bottom of this article. Hoehn encouraged family members, friends and classmates of the fallen to contact her by emailing neverforgotten2014@gmail.com if they have photos or any other information that could point her in the right direction.

Utah is the 10th state Hoehn has decided to focus on. Hoehn estimates she has personally collected about 1,500 photos so far over the past year and a half, but it all started with just one name — Gregory John Crossman.

Although Hoehn didn't know Crossman, she felt impressed to make an etching of his name while visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in D.C. She tried to find his family when she returned to Hawaii, but didn't have any luck. However, a cousin was able to find a college photo of Crossman. When Hoehn heard about the Faces Never Forgotten project two years later, she sent in the photo of Crossman.

Soon she received a message from the memorial's founder, Jan Scruggs, with a request: could she help him find photos of the 42 other soldiers from Maui who died in the Vietnam War?

After reaching out to numerous communities, she is only nine photos away from having pictures of every fallen soldier from Hawaii. She is also collecting photos in California, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Alaska, Colorado and now Utah. About a month ago, she finished collecting photos in Montana.

"I feel like what I'm doing is bringing honor not only to the fallen, but to the living Vietnam veterans too — that it is bringing some pride back to them, that it wasn't all for naught," Hoehn said. "it's a very emotional journey."

Even though Hoehn didn't know anyone who died in the Vietnam War — she had two cousins who served, but they both returned home — she feels a deep connection to the conflict since it defined her high school years. She said that while she understands why people protested the war, she never understood why people didn't treat soldiers well when they returned home since so many of the young men were drafted into service.

Working on the project has been an incredible journey, according to Hoehn. She said she has heard countless stories, both funny and sad, as people share their photos. Sometimes family members will call her up and just cry.

"I get mothers who call me and they just cry and apologize and say, 'I'm so sorry. I can't believe this is affecting me even this long.' I say, 'Well, of course this is affecting you. You're not ever going to forget your son.' The families are so grateful when they hear about this," Hoehn said.

Tracking down the soldiers can be tricky. While information like dates of birth and death are readily available, it is often difficult to tell where a soldier was actually from because the military recorded the city where they enlisted as their home of record, regardless of where they actually grew up. For example, people from small towns often traveled to bigger cities like Salt Lake City to sign up.

Hoehn doesn't intend to let those difficulties stand in her way. She spends about 40 hours per week working on the project, while still managing to run her own floral business in Maui. Out of the 58,307 American soldiers who died in the conflict, about 16,000 are still missing photos.

"I get up very early and I go to bed very late. That's how important this project is to me," she said. "I work on it seven days a week. You know, when you find something you're passionate about it is very easy to put your entire life into it and that is pretty much what I have done. And I will continue to do so until I cannot do it any longer or we get that last photo, which will still be a while."

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