By Melissa Griffy Seeton, CantonRep.com News:
Posted Jun. 9, 2009 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jun 9, 2009 at 9:01 AM
CANTON
For the family of Sharon Ann Lane, the sting of her death remains very real.
It's been 40 years since Lane was killed. Forty years since she became the only American service woman slain by direct enemy fire in Vietnam.
Still, Lane's life remains a bit of a mystery, even to family members. It pains those who knew her well to speak about the young woman of just 25 who enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves and wound up in Vietnam. When I was little we didn't talk about it, said Edie Richeson, daughter of Lane's older sister, Judy (Lane) Tritt. "It made everyone cry. It made my mom cry." Richeson of Perry Township was 3 when her aunt was killed. She said she only knows bits and pieces about Lane, why she joined the military and her brief Army career.
SERVING HER COUNTRY
A graduate of Canton South High School, Lane attended the Aultman College of Nursing. She worked at Aultman Hospital before joining the Army Nurse Corps Reserve on April 18, 1968.
Lane completed basic training at Fort Sam Houston. She then served 10 months at Fitzsimons General Hospital in Denver, according to the U.S. Army Reserves. On April 24, 1969, she left for Vietnam, arriving in the country five days later.
Lane worked at the 312th Evacuation Hospital's Vietnamese ward in Chu Lai. There, she treated Vietnamese civilians and POWs.
She was just finishing her shift on June 8, 1969, when a 122mm rocket hit the ward, said Pat Powell, president of the Sharon Lane Memorial Chapter 199, Inc., Vietnam Veterans of America. Lane was hit by a piece of shrapnel in the neck, killing her instantly.
She was one of two killed in the explosion.
SEEKING SOLACE
Lane's family, and members of the Sharon Lane Memorial Chapter, paid tribute to Lane on Monday at the Sharon Lane Information Center in Aultman Hospital, where there is a monument in her honor.
She paid the ultimate price, said Powell, who asked those present to remember nurses treating soldiers injured in battle. Some of them, the last face they see is that of a nurse. Remember the brave men and women who heal our veterans.
Lane's mother, Kay Lane of Canton Township, watched silently as the veterans laid a wreath in front of the monument honoring her daughter.
Kay Lane didn't want to speak about her daughter.
Richeson, fighting off her own tears, said her grandmother, who until just recently had kept Lane's room exactly the same as it was when she left for Vietnam, is still in a lot of pain.
I don't think, Richeson said, taking a deep breathe, I just don't think we'll ever really get over it.
