In 1996, Dennis Starzinger stood before the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., and wept.

Memories from two years spent in the southeast Asian jungle bound him with the names of the dead engraved in the black marble wall. The survivor broke down.

But at the time, neither he nor anyone around him realized the depth of what his family would consider his own sacrifice. He had no idea that within six years, his connection with those names would be complete.

In 2002, Starzinger died of stomach cancer. He and his family believed the cancer to have resulted from his exposure to a toxic chemical while serving in Vietnam. Today, Starzinger will be honored when his name is placed on a register at the monument he had trouble facing.

Drafted into Army

He grew up in Pocahontas. He graduated from St. Paul High School in Concordia, Mo., then from Bailey Tech in St. Louis. In 1969, at age 20, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He spent the next two years in Vietnam at Long Bien and Phu Bai.

After his tour, Starzinger returned to Pocahontas and married fellow native Rhonda Weber. Though they had gone to different schools, the two had grown up 3 miles from each other. The young couple sought to live and raise a family in their hometown.

Twenty-seven years passed. Rhonda gave birth to two sons, Jon and Eric. Starzinger worked out of his home shop as a woodworker and cabinetmaker, remodeling building interiors. In late 1996, he began having trouble eating. He complained of feeling full after only a few bites of food. The couple wrote it off as mere indigestion, but the problem persisted.

In February 1997, while remodeling the Gastroenterology Associates of Southeast Missouri building in Cape Girardeau, Starzinger mentioned his problem to Dr. H.L. Schneider Jr., who worked at the building. Schneider said he would take a look. What he found was a stomach full of tumors.

On Valentine's Day 1997, Starzinger was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Upon examination, Schneider asked Starzinger two questions that would be repeated by each of the five doctors Starzinger was to see: "Were you in Vietnam? Were you exposed to Agent Orange?"

The federal government acknowledges that Starzinger was exposed to Agent Orange, a defoliant used by U.S. forces to clear jungle that provided cover for the enemy in Vietnam. But neither the doctors nor the government would definitively say the cancer was caused by that exposure. As a result, the Starzingers' repeated requests for government aid for Dennis' ailment were rejected.

"They said it wasn't one of the types of cancer that the government recognized as being war-related," Rhonda said.

Never bitter

Meanwhile, the cancer slowly took hold of Dennis' body. He fought it for five years. He underwent nine surgeries, two rounds of radiation therapy and three rounds of chemotherapy. Finally, his body succumbed on New Year's Day 2002. Through it all, Rhonda said, he was never bitter about his service to his country.

As she tried to adjust to life without her husband, Rhonda began seeing stories on TV and in the newspaper about other Vietnam veterans who had died under similar circumstances. On April 11, 2002, she read about Roger East, a former Cape Girardeau resident who died from throat cancer his family believed was caused by exposure to Agent Orange. Although the U.S. government wouldn't recognize the correlation, a non-profit group called the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund did. They arranged for East to be honored as a casualty of war during their annual In Memory Day Ceremony in Washington D.C.

The ceremony posthumously recognizes veterans who died prematurely due to noncombat injuries. They are soldiers whose names who are not eligible for inscription on the wall because, according to the government, their injuries weren't sustained in a combat zone.

Rhonda wanted Dennis to receive the same recognition as East. After retrieving Dennis' medical and military records, she contacted representatives of the organization. Now Dennis Starzinger slated to be honored today, In Memory Day 2004. His name will be read along with those of fellow Vietnam veterans now deceased and will inscribed not on the wall itself but in a registry of more than 1,000 soldiers whose sacrifices didn't meet the government criteria. That roll is kept in a kiosk on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial grounds.

Unfortunately, because her sons were unable to go, Rhonda will not be able to attend the ceremony. Her grief is still too near to face the wall alone. But she hopes one day to revisit the monument, to see that her husband got the recognition she feels he deserves.

"He would have been very proud," she said.

trehagen@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137