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Lee Co. Vets' Photos Needed for Memorial Project

Vietnam Wall

A woman in Hawaii is working to put a face with the name of every fallen serviceman on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, and she is searching for photos of four men who lived in Lee County.

Janna Hoehn of Maui has been volunteering with the "Faces Never Forgotten" program for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. The goal of the program is to match every name on the wall with a photo of the fallen veteran.

She is working alongside Auburn High School AP history teacher Blake Busbin and his students, who have been collecting photos for the project since 2015. They have helped locate about 300 photos of fallen Vietnam veterans from Alabama and Georgia, but photos of four area veterans have yet to be located. Three are from Phenix City and one is from Salem, according to Hoehn.

They are: Young D. Ogletree of Salem, 1944-1968; Joe L. Jones of Phenix City, 1938-1968; Elijah Miles, Jr. of Phenix City, 1947-1968; and Robbie R. Mills of Phenix City, 1938-1967.

Family members or anyone with photos or information about the four men are urged to e-mail the volunteers at neverforgotten2014@gmail.com.

Busbin says he still receives about an e-mail each month from people who want to know if photos for certain veterans are needed.

Hoehn says the photos will be submitted to the 'Wall of Faces' online memorial with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund website, and will be included in a future Education Center that will be adjacent to the memorial in Washington, D.C.

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