A brick like this one in Fall River, Massachusetts, will be dedicated at Arlington Heights’ Memorial Park during Monday’s Memorial Day ceremonies in honor of Sgt. 1st Class James Moreland, who was killed in Vietnam in 1968 but listed as MIA until 2011.
Courtesy of Melinda Collins
For more than 38 years, Kathy Strong wore a bracelet in tribute to a young soldier she never met and promised to never forget.
That stainless steel band is gone, buried 13 years ago with the body of Special Forces Sgt. 1st Class James Moreland, but the promise remains, and will bring Strong from her home in California to Arlington Heights this weekend for the village’s Memorial Day ceremony.
It’s there that Strong will help dedicate a brick in the town’s Memorial Park in honor of Moreland, a 22-year-old U.S. Army Green Beret who disappeared in February 1968, when his unit came under heavy attack during the Battle of Lang Vei in South Vietnam.
Sgt. 1st Class James Moreland
Courtesy of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
Strong was introduced to Moreland on Christmas 1972, when the 12-year-old living in the Bay Area opened her stocking and found a bracelet with his name on it. Produced by an organization called Voices in Vital America, the bracelets were at the time a popular tribute to service members missing or captured in Vietnam.
“I promised to wear it until he came home,” Strong said.
More than two years later, bracelet still firmly in place, Strong received a photo of Moreland in his Green Beret uniform through Voices in Vital America, along with a short biography of the missing soldier.
“That was the first information I’d ever received about him,” she said. “There was a picture — he was a Green Beret with a very intense look in his eyes. It was as if his eyes reached out into my soul and said ‘Please don’t forget about me.’ That cemented my commitment.”
She couldn’t have imagined at the time that the bracelet would stay in place for another 36 years.
Though Moreland was presumed to have died in battle Feb. 7, 1968, he would spend the next 43 years listed as MIA. It wasn’t until February 2011 that DNA testing determined that Moreland’s remains had been found in 1995 near the Lang Vei battlefield, and he was repatriated to his native Alabama.
Strong, who had met two of Moreland’s sisters three years earlier after they saw a newspaper article about her promise to their brother, attended his funeral on May 14, 2011. It was there that she finally removed the bracelet.
“I placed it on the left sleeve of his dress uniform, because I had always worn it on my left wrist,” she said.
Taking off the bracelet didn’t end Strong’s commitment to honor Moreland, however. It opened a new chapter.
Kathy Strong poses with the Memorial brick dedicated earlier this month in honor of Sgt. 1st Class James Moreland in Boise, Idaho. Strong will be at Arlington Heights’ Memorial Park on Monday to dedicate a brick in Moreland’s honor, part of her mission to dedicate a brick in all 50 states to the Green Beret killed serving in Vietnam.
Courtesy of Kathy Strong
Since then, Strong has traveled the country dedicating bricks engraved with Moreland’s name at war memorials. Her goal is to dedicate one brick in every state.
After visiting Boise, Idaho, last week, she’s arriving in Arlington Heights to take part in the village’s 105th annual Memorial Day ceremony Monday and dedicate brick number 38.
Strong chose Arlington Heights after researching Memorial locations in Illinois and speaking with Greg Padovani, chair of the Veterans Memorial Committee of Arlington Heights.
“It was December 2023 when Kathy called me to introduce herself and tell me the story of SFC Moreland,” Padovani said. “I was truly moved by their story and Kathy’s selection of Arlington Heights for his commemorative brick.”
A photo of Sgt. First Class James Moreland is next to a Memorial brick dedicated in his honor in Wichita, Kansas. It was the 35th brick on Kathy Strong’s mission to dedicate one in every state to Moreland, who was killed serving in Vietnam in 1968.
Courtesy of Kathy Strong
Strong will be among the speakers during the ceremony at Memorial Park, located at North Chestnut Avenue and West Fremont Street. The 11 a.m. ceremony follows the town’s Memorial Day parade — considered the largest in the suburbs, with an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 marchers and more than 6,000 spectators. The parade steps off from village hall at 9:30 a.m.
After Monday’s ceremony, Strong is headed back home, where she’ll be making plans to dedicate at least two more bricks this year. It’s an expensive quest, between the airfare, hotel stays, car rentals and the cost of engraved bricks — about $200 on average, but as much as $500 in some cases.
For Strong, it’s the price of keeping a promise her 12-year-old self made to a stranger one Christmas morning more than 50 years ago.
“By honoring this one soldier,” she said, “I feel I’m honoring all the soldiers who served in Vietnam.”
An eternal flame burns at Memorial Park in Arlington Heights to honor the village’s war dead. Monday’s Memorial Day ceremony in the park will include the dedication of a brick engraved with the same of Sgt. 1st Class James Moreland, who was killed in 1968 while fighting in Vietnam.
Daily Herald File Photo
Arlington Heights’ Memorial Park will host the village’s 105th annual Memorial Day ceremony on Monday.
Daily Herald File Photo