[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 82 (Monday, June 20, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1293-E1294]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           HONORING ARMY PRIVATE FIRST CLASS JOHN HAROLD BERG

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. DONALD A. MANZULLO

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, June 20, 2005

  Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, last month, I had the honor and privilege 
of attending the annual Memorial Day Vietnam Wall observance, in which 
one of my constituents and friends, the late Army PFC John Harold Berg 
of Rockford, Illinois, was honored for his service to our country. John 
was gravely injured in Vietnam, but he passed up his 100 percent 
disability status when he returned because he wanted to help others. 
Despite a host of serious medical issues, John served as a veterans 
representative for 25 years at the Illinois Department of Employment 
Security before he died in 2003 from cancer caused by shrapnel lodged 
in his brain from his Vietnam injury. On Memorial Day, I sat with 
John's widow, Lynn, and several of John's friends as his name was one 
of just four this year officially added to the Vietnam Wall. It was a 
remarkable day for a remarkable man. I have attached a newspaper 
article written by Judy Emerson of the Rockford Register Star that 
describes John's contributions and his character perfectly:

                      Adding Soldiers to the Wall

       One hundred years from now, someone will read the name 
     ``John H. Berg'' cut into black granite on The Wall in 
     Washington, D.C., and they will assume he died in Vietnam in 
     the spring of 1968. Berg was fatally wounded April 7, 1968, 
     in combat near Khe Sahn, but it took him 37\1/2\ years to 
     die. When he did, on Oct. 10, 2003, it was in his rural 
     Rockford home surrounded by family. But the Vietnam War took 
     his life, just as surely as if he had died that spring day 
     long ago as he lay in the dirt with blood streaming from the 
     hole in his skull. Medics postponed his death that day. 
     Military doctors patched him up as well as they could and 
     sent him home to Rockford with a plate covering the hole in 
     his skull and shrapnel still embedded in his brain.
       He dragged his left leg, and his left hand was useless. He 
     slurred his words. Back in Rockford, he couldn't find a job. 
     A talented musician, he was bitterly disappointed that he 
     couldn't play piano, organ, violin and guitar, as he once 
     did. But he went to college. He re-learned how to play his 
     instruments with only his right hand and arm. He sought the 
     company of other Vietnam veterans who understood the 
     struggle. He found a job that gave him purpose. For 25 years, 
     he was a veterans representative at the Illinois Department 
     of Employment Security. Over the years, he helped thousands 
     of veterans find jobs and get benefits to which they were 
     entitled. Many were disabled, as he was.
       In 2002, doctors found the tumor growing under the plate in 
     Berg's head. His widow, Lynn Berg, said doctors found 
     shrapnel when they tried to carve away the tumor and buy her 
     husband a little more time. Even fighting the relentless 
     growth of a malignant tumor, Berg continued to work. He lived 
     longer than anybody expected.
       When he died, his buddies at VietNow, which he'd helped to 
     start, began the process to have his name added to The Wall, 
     the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. The Department of Defense 
     concluded that Berg's fatal wound was incurred in Vietnam in 
     1968 and that he qualified to have his name listed on the 
     memorial. And so, Berg's name was carved on The Wall earlier 
     this month. A small diamond after the name signifies a 
     confirmed combat death. His name was placed as close as 
     possible to those of other soldiers who suffered their fatal 
     injuries on the same day. The thinking is that they should be 
     together. His father, 86-year-old Harold John Berg, said that 
     the memorial was waiting for his son, despite the 37\1/2\-
     year reprieve from death. ``We saw the wall once,'' the 
     elder Berg said. ``And now we go the rest of the way. He's 
     on it.'' John H. Berg of Rockford was fatally wounded in 
     Vietnam April 7, 1968. He died Oct. 10, 2003. What he did 
     in between is the story.


                              Talented boy

       Harold Berg was a machinist and inspector who retired from 
     Camcar years ago. His health is poor but his memory and 
     spirits are good. His wife, 80-year-old Vergene, has 
     Alzheimer's disease. They spend their days in side-by-side 
     hospital beds in the Cherry Valley home of their daughter 
     Hilary Belcher, who cares for them. Her husband, Nick, and 9-
     year-old daughter, Chenoa, help.
       Young John Berg wanted to be a musician. His mother was a 
     long-time organist for their church, and her firstborn son 
     also played the organ, as well as piano, violin and guitar. A 
     1965 graduate of East High School, John took some classes at 
     Rock Valley College until he was drafted in the summer of 
     1967. ``We tried to talk him into going into the Air Force, 
     but he thought he'd get this over with in two years,'' his 
     dad said. By January 1968, 20-year-old John was in Vietnam. 
     His early letters home to his parents, three younger sisters 
     and a brother revealed a diminishing innocence as reality and 
     the futility of the mission sank in. ``I only hope this year 
     goes fast and I come back in one piece,'' he wrote two weeks 
     before his injury.
       His wife, Lynn, said John could remember what happened 
     during the firefight on April 7, 1968, up until he was 
     wounded. He was feeding an ammunition belt into a machine gun 
     being fired by another soldier when he turned to dive for 
     cover from incoming mortar. It's still unclear whether he was 
     shot in the head or hit by shrapnel or both. He was 
     unconscious or semiconscious for weeks. The Western Union 
     telegram arrived early one weekday morning as Harold Berg was 
     getting ready for work. ``Deep regret . . . very seriously 
     ill list . . . penetrating fragment wound to the head.'' 
     Vergene couldn't stop crying. Hilary Belcher, who's 15 years 
     younger than John, doesn't remember too much about the time, 
     except that her parents were distraught.
       The telegrams kept coming with updates on her brother's 
     condition, and after John was transferred to a hospital in 
     Denver, Colo., the family drove out there to see him. ``I 
     remember walking down a long hallway and doorway after 
     doorway, there were all these men with holes in their 
     heads, just like John,'' Belcher said. ``We took him out 
     for a while. You could hardly understand him when he 
     talked.'' Months later, when he came home, she said, ``I 
     ran out to him saying `John's home! John's home!' He 
     screamed. He thought I was going to knock him down. ``I 
     used to run to him and he'd throw me up in the air.'' 
     There was plenty of trauma to go around.
       ``Those first eight years, he was very angry,'' Belcher 
     said. ``When you get a head injury, it changes your whole 
     personality.'' John was bitter that he couldn't play his 
     instruments. His disability was obvious, and nobody would 
     hire him. ``It took him years to find a job. He even applied 
     to a gas station to pump gas, but they told him, `You only 
     have one hand, ' '' Belcher said. He decided to go back to 
     Rock Valley College. There, he met Reuben Johnson, dean of 
     community services and the producer and founder of Starlight 
     Theatre. Johnson helped Berg learn to play the piano, organ, 
     guitar and violin with one hand.
       It was a turning point, as was the job Berg landed in July 
     1977 as a veterans representative at the Illinois Department 
     of Employment Security. He was good at it, said Jack

[[Page E1294]]

     Snyder, who also is a disabled Vietnam veteran. The two men 
     worked together at the department for close to 25 years. 
     ``I've never seen a person give so much heart and caring to 
     his job as John did,'' Snyder said. ``We had guys coming in 
     who were basically homeless. He would take them home until 
     they got on their feet. ``I've seen him cry at his desk over 
     some of these situations, over the misuse and abuse the 
     military has given some of these people.''
       Berg often referred clients to the Winnebago County 
     Veterans Assistance office in Memorial Hall. Herbert L. 
     Crenshaw, also a Vietnam veteran, works there. He and Berg 
     worked together to get help for thousands of vets over the 
     years, he said. ``He worked with this office to get veterans 
     back on their feet, to get jobs, get assistance,'' Crenshaw 
     said. ``He had walked in their shoes. He had the same 
     difficulties and disabilities they had.''
       Berg, like many of his clients, had a full disability 
     designation from the Department of Veterans Affairs. ``He 
     could have sat home and drawn a disability,'' Crenshaw said. 
     ``He chose to work.'' Berg had a network that he could use to 
     get practical assistance for veterans and offer them moral 
     support. He helped found VietNow, a support group for Vietnam 
     veterans that started in Rockford and then became a national 
     organization. It still thrives.
       Nick Parnello, one of the original VietNow members and now 
     president of the Vietnam Veterans Honor Society, said John 
     was ``the only guy that always showed up'' at the early 
     meetings. ``Some of the guys felt that we should give up 
     because there were so few of us back then,'' Parnello said. 
     ``But if John could show up in his disabled condition, it was 
     an inspiration to all of us. ``Everybody he came in contact 
     with was changed because of his commitment to them.''


                          Marriage and family

       In November 1991, Berg met Lynn Walquist of Rockford. Her 
     daughter and son-in-law, who knew Berg through mutual 
     acquaintances in the veterans circle, fixed them up. ``I've 
     got four kids--two in college--and all these animals,'' 
     recalled Lynn, who's always had a cat and at least one dog. 
     ``What's wrong with him?''
       The kids always had rock music blaring when Berg came to 
     pick her up for a date. ``He said, `Do you ever listen to 
     classical music?' '' she said, she didn't. He taught her to 
     love it as he did. Lynn's scrapbook holds tickets from 
     concerts they attended at the Lyric Opera in Chicago and 
     elsewhere. By then, Berg could make music on the piano and 
     other instruments with one hand. He sang with the Rock Valley 
     Chorale and with a Mendelssohn Club group. They fell in love 
     and were married April 25, 1992. ``It was the best day of our 
     lives,'' Lynn Berg said. ``He told me: `I'll never say no to 
     you,' and he kept his promise.''
       Over the years they attended VietNow conventions and 
     events. She became active as an ``associate,'' which is what 
     veterans'' spouses are called in the group. ``He always said 
     that he felt very fortunate. He was only in Vietnam for three 
     months,'' Lynn Berg said. ``The others who had been there 
     longer were the ones who came back with so many problems.'' 
     His friends became her friends. Her children and 
     grandchildren were his.
       He's smiling in every picture his wife has in her numerous 
     photo albums. But it would be a mistake to say Berg's 
     transformation from an angry young man to a person with 
     purpose and a zest for living was easy, said his sister, 
     Hilary Belcher. ``He had to grow into a new personality and 
     lifestyle and everything,'' Belcher said. ``He was gung-ho 
     when he went into the service, and then he lost it and he got 
     angry. ``But he got through it, and his gung ho came back.''
       Retired U.S. Army Col. Fremont Piercefield knew Berg well 
     from their mutual work in various organizations, including 
     the VFW, Disabled American Veterans and the Winnebago County 
     Veterans Association. ``He was the gentlest, kindest man,'' 
     the colonel said. ``He was there when you expected him and 
     when you needed him.'' He was the same way on the home front, 
     his wife said. He took care of the house and the cars and the 
     lawn, but he also taught her how to do those things. She 
     needs to know them now that he's gone.
       He would see a need and answer it before other people 
     noticed, she said. For instance, he was concerned that one of 
     her daughters was in danger walking from the library back to 
     her dorm at Northern Illinois University after using a 
     computer late at night. He bought her a computer for her 
     room.
       There were health issues over the years. Berg took 
     medication to deal with headaches and seizures that came with 
     the head injury. He learned to compensate for the partial 
     paralysis of his left side and minimized the limp. He never 
     regained use of his left hand. It looked just as it did when 
     he was 20 years old, his wife and sister said, as if it had 
     been frozen in time the day he was injured.


                          The end of something

       In May of 2002, Berg began having excruciating, 
     debilitating headaches and more frequent seizures, his wife 
     said. Brain scans showed bright spots of shrapnel but the 
     brain tumor was not detected for a couple of months. He had 
     surgery, but the tumor was malignant, and doctors indicated 
     it was just a matter of time. Lynn Berg remembers one doctor 
     predicting John had about nine months. He exceeded that by 
     about seven months. VietNow treasurer and good friend Darrell 
     Gilgan visited Berg as he was recuperating from the surgery 
     in a Beloit nursing home.
       Berg's radio was missing one day and Gilgan asked him about 
     it. ``He gave it to the guy in the next bed, a B-17 pilot 
     during World War II,'' Gilgan said. ``He was like that.'' 
     Berg continued to work as much as he could, but the tumor was 
     growing again and the pain was awful, his wife said. During 
     his last months, she cared for him at their home, with help 
     from the Northern Illinois Hospice Association. He died Oct. 
     10, 2003. A few months later, Gilgan began the paperwork 
     necessary to have Berg considered for addition to the Vietnam 
     Memorial. The key element in Berg's favor was that the 
     Department of Veterans Affairs had determined that his death 
     was a result of the combat injury in 1968.
       Gilgan sent a letter to U.S. Rep. Don Manzullo, R-Egan, who 
     sent it through the proper military channels. ``I had known 
     John for years,'' said Manzullo, who will sit with Berg's 
     family at a Memorial Day ceremony Monday at The Wall. ``Here 
     is a guy who could have given up, but he refused to accept 
     the fact that people told him he was 100 percent disabled. 
     ``He went to work to serve as a witness and an example to 
     people who are severely disabled.''
       Some friends and family have traveled from the Rockford 
     area to join Lynn Berg at the ceremony, which will include a 
     special remembrance for her husband and three other veterans 
     whose names have been added on The Wall. John Berg's parents 
     are not well enough to go. His dad wishes he could, though. 
     ``It's an end to something, I guess,'' Harold Berg said. ``He 
     just got an extension on his death.'' That sad morning when 
     the telegram came so many years ago and the day his son died 
     all those years later occupy the same place of grief in his 
     heart. ``We hoped the day would never come,'' his dad said, 
     ``but then we found out he wasn't going to make it, after 
     all.''

                          ____________________