HD Media, The Herald Dispatch
WAYNE, W.Va. — More than a half-century after small-arms fire killed Sgt. Archie Melvin Ellyson in a Vietnam battlefield southeast of Ho Chi Minh City, Linda Whaley found him in England.
The soldier from Richwood was the last of 734 servicemen Whaley tracked to ensure they had a grave marker in remembrance of their sacrifice. All died in the Vietnam War, and all were from West Virginia.
Their gravesites were scattered across the country and, in Ellyson’s case, across the pond.
Registrar and chaplain of the Huntington chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Whaley and fellow member Patricia Haught spent the past year searching for the markers. Whaley’s personal goal: Finish by the end of 2020.
In the week before Christmas, five were left, some buried in Kentucky and some in northern West Virginia. And finally there was Ellyson…
