Vietnam veteran's name to be added to Washington wall.
MUSKEGON, Mich. (AP) -- Fireman Apprentice Joseph Gerald Krywicki will be listed on "the Wall" after all. Nearly 40 years after Krywicki was killed in Vietnam, the Holton native's name will be added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The bureaucratic mistake that excluded Krywicki wasn't corrected in time for this year's Memorial Day ceremony in Washington, but his name is expected to be added next year. The Navy initially declined to add Krywicki's name to the memorial because he died not in combat but in a "friendly fire" incident. The 19-year-old was fatally shot, apparently by accident, on Sept. 13, 1966, while standing watch in a guard tower in Qui Nonh. But according to the memorial's Web site, maintained by the National Park Service, "the Wall" contains names of those killed both accidentally and in combat, as well as the missing. A Navy official last month agreed to add Krywicki's name after inquiries from the sailor's family, veterans' activists and a reporter from a Texas newspaper investigating mistaken exclusions from the memorial. "I think (Krywicki's exclusion) was wrong, but I can understand the fact that somebody misinterpreted" the rules, the sailor's sister-in-law, Mary Krywicki, told The Muskegon Chronicle. "They acknowledged that they made a mistake." Joseph Krywicki's name also is being added to Muskegon's own Vietnam veterans' memorial.