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Click Image Above for the 1-1-2024 News Release
"Beyond Vietnam" in Personal Terms
Sp5 Wyley Wright Jr., an only child, was fighting in the jungles of Vietnam when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the prophetic “I Have A Dream” speech on August 28, 1963, one month before his fourth child whom he never lived to see, was born on the date of September 30, 1963. Wyley Wright Jr. was putting actions to the words of Dr. King, working to create a better world by fighting to sustain and expand democracy. By the time Dr. King warned the nation of the ravages and deterioration of war in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech, Sp5 Wyley Wright Jr. had been buried in Jacksonville, Florida’s Mt. Olive Cemetery three years.
My father was last stationed at Fort Knox outside of Louisville, Kentucky with the 114th Aviation Company, before he was deployed by President John F. Kennedy to go to Vietnam as an "advisor." Ninety days after the assassination of President Kennedy, Sp5 Wyley Wright Jr. died as an honor guard for Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara in a helicopter crash in the Mekong River on March 9, 1964 along with PFC John Francis Shea of Willimantic, Connecticut, leaving a wife with four children, one, a six-month babe in arms whom his eyes never saw and hands never cradled.
In “Beyond Vietnam,” Dr. King talked about Black and White lives sacrificed in the war. A young White man, with no children, John Francis Shea, a Roman Catholic as his dog tags indicted was about two weeks from turning 21 years old and Wyley Wright Jr., an only child, with Methodist on his dog tags, was 32 Years old when they died for the United States of America on foreign land. Wright was so loved, his grandmother, Nora Henderson, “Moma Nora” to the family and wider Floradale community in Jacksonville, often quipped: “We loved Junior so much we thought he was a piece of Jesus!” This one story representing thousands of families is an example of two families intertwined on a fateful day bearing the heartbreak of war with generational impact.
When we found out, after almost fifty years that our father, who was two weeks from returning home in March 1964 and who had completed over 300 successful missions in Vietnam as a helicopter crew chief, a recipient of the air medal and the Purple Heart while living and posthumously, was buried in a deteriorating segregated cemetery, March 10, 2014, my three siblings and I had our father and mother reburied at Arlington National Cemetery, an honor more worthy of his life sacrificed for the cause of freedom.
Now at the tenth anniversary of our dedication to our parents, who in eleven years of marriage had four children, the three remaining as their oldest son, U.S. Army Veteran Joe N. Wright died suddenly of a heart attack February 23, 2022, would like to honor our father and mother once again and as citizens of the United States of America we will have the ceremony in Washington, D.C. The ceremony in tribute to Joe and his dearly loved wife, Brenda Tibbs Wright, is simply to call attention and pay homage to every day "salt of the earth" people in the world who have made contributions behind the headlines just doing their jobs with excellence without striving for celebrity.
This pause to honor the Wright soldiers and their wives is in recognition of the working-class people in our nation and the world who live righteously to keep the world going for the commonwealth...earning their keep by doing good is the rent they pay to pave the way for future generations and to thank the Creator for the blessing of life.
See www.lovereunited.org for a glimpse of the overcoming story that included going to Vietnam in expression of Black Family Love:
Wright Sisters In Vietnam Find Shannon Wright Compound Named After Their Father
https://youtu.be/Z-Drc0kdRxw?si=0OlIQ9PuCIt0yyho
Wright Sisters Find Family of Vietnamese Artist Who Made the Last Wedding Anniversary Gifts Their Father Commissioned in the Midst of a War for His Wife of Eleven Years
https://youtu.be/zXTjODHjbBM?si=D8SWNM-JD2xyrbEA
Jackie Wright,
CEO of Wright Enterprises
www.wrightnow.biz
January 15, 2024
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