https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/new-memorial-for-vietnam-veterans-helps-lancaster-native-reconnect-with/article_fb1a45e4-1580-11e7-800c-13803d57ac17.html
TOM KNAPP | Staff Writer | April 2, 2017
A violent brawl in a seedy San Diego bar taught David Lacher a lot about his dad.
Lacher doesn't remember how old he was at the time, but his father had been dead for several years. When the fight broke out, he tried to remain inconspicuous in his seat -- and two other men, also wary of the ruckus, came to join him.
"They sat down and introduced themselves. I told them my name and they stopped. Just stopped," he says. "One asked, 'Was your father Staff Sgt. Martin James Lacher?' I froze. Then I nodded. The place was coming around us from the brawl, and they stood up and saluted me. I choked. I was blown away.
"Needless to say, we talked the night away. They told me things about him. It made me feel good. It made me proud."
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is augmenting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., by creating a virtual Wall of Faces commemorating the American men and women who died as a result of the Vietnam War.
The state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs is assisting the effort by collecting 3,151 photos of Pennsylvania veterans for the virtual wall.
In March, the DMVA circulated a list of 105 veterans whose photos are missing from the collection, and there was one name on the list from Lancaster County: Martin J. Lacher.
A veteran of three wars, Staff Sgt. Lacher didn't come home from the last one. LNP tracked down his son, David Lacher, on the West Coast.
Now 63, David was unaware of the DMVA's efforts, but he acted quickly to contact the department and submit the few photos he has of his father.
In a phone interview Wednesday, David said the memorial sparks a lot of memories and emotions.
"I'm choked up. Proud. And glad, truly," he said.
"These guys gave their best. The fellows that did come back weren't treated particularly well -- they didn't come home to ticker-tape parades," he said. "So I'm delighted. I'm so pleased that these guys are being recognized."
His father, he added, is "just one story in a wall full of stories."
Martin Lacher -- a veteran of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War -- died in Vietnam on April 3, 1966.
David Lacher lives in Kirkland, Washington, with his wife, Maia. He doesn't have many clear memories of his father.
Although he was born in Lancaster, he left the area when he was very young and doesn't know his father's ties to the county.
His dad didn't like to talk about his military service, he said.
"As a kid, there I was with my plastic soldiers, wanting my dad to tell me about combat and war," he said. "He would always change the subject and talk about other things."
But he remembers the day a couple of uniformed officers came to his house near the Marine Corps Training Center in Twentynine Palms, California.
"I was 13 when they came to the door and said, 'Son, is your mom home?' I knew then something had happened. I remember thinking, 'No. No. Please.' "
Martin Lacher made a career of the service, his son said -- starting in World War II.
"He was underage -- he got someone to sign for him," David said. "He served aboard a destroyer escort as a deck gunner.
"The Navy led the way to the Marine Corps for him. He found a home in the military."
According to the military website TogetherWeServed.com, Lacher joined the Marines in 1946.
Overseas service included the Evacuation of Hungnam in 1950 and a summer/fall campaign in Korea in 1952, the website states.
He served in non-combat roles in Turkey, Lebanon, Greece and Italy, David said.
And he served in two campaigns in Vietnam in 1966.
"He was a Marine, that's who he was," he said. "My mom wanted him to get out. I remember listening to my mom and dad talk -- she didn't want him to get involved in Vietnam.
"He was old for Vietnam -- 39 years old when he died," he added. "I guess they really needed him."
Stateside, Lacher moved his family from base to base, David said -- training young Marines for combat and working in communications.
"I was so proud of him," David said. "If I was half the man he was, I'd be 10 times the man I am."
Lacher is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
According to HonorStates.org, an online memorial to fallen service men and women, Lacher "drowned in the South China Sea while swimming off the south side of Ky Hoa Island."
David Lacher doesn't know the details of his father's service in Vietnam, nor does he know the details of his father's death.
"I asked about the circumstances and was told nothing," he said. "They told my mom it was an accidental drowning."
What he does know is that the men his father served with respected him.
"I am in awe ... of the number of men who made the effort to contact me over the years and tell me about my dad," David said.
"They said he was skilled in teaching young men how to protect themselves, how to keep themselves safe. They said he was a good sharpshooter.
"And he was a damned good Marine," he added. "I kept hearing that, 'a damned good Marine.' ... But I didn't know at the time that he was such an incredible man. I just knew him as dad.
"I would have given anything to have him come home from Vietnam."