{"id":21262,"date":"2017-10-12T18:54:53","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T23:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=21262"},"modified":"2017-10-12T18:54:53","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T23:54:53","slug":"vietnam-war-soliders-lost-letters-returned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2017\/10\/12\/vietnam-war-soliders-lost-letters-returned\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam War solider\u2019s lost letters returned"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post-thumbnail link-fullfeature\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-twentyfourteen-full-width  wp-post-image\" src=\"https:\/\/link.usps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/WaPoLetter_large-story.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/link.usps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/WaPoLetter_large-story.jpg 900w, https:\/\/link.usps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/WaPoLetter_large-story-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/link.usps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/WaPoLetter_large-story-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/link.usps.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/WaPoLetter_large-story-120x80.jpg 120w\" alt=\"Vietnam War-era letter and photo\" width=\"530\" height=\"353\" \/><\/p>\n<h6 class=\"link-caption\"><em>The letters, photos and newspaper clippings connected to Bill Stacy that were recently discovered behind the drywall of a Silver Spring, MD, home. Image: The Washington Post<\/em><\/h6>\n<\/div>\n<p>USPS News Link &#8211; 10\/12\/17 &#8211; For nearly 20 years, <em>Susan<\/em> and John Greifer kept letters they found hidden behind the drywall of their Silver Spring, MD, home during a remodeling project.<\/p>\n<p>The mailpieces came from Bill Stacy, an Army soldier who wrote to his family each week while serving in Vietnam during the war. The Stacys once lived in the house now occupied by the Griefers.<\/p>\n<p>The letters chronicle Stacy\u2019s experiences during the war, including his loneliness at Christmastime and his work in an orphanage he \u201cadopted\u201d in a nearby village.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGood and bad, there are many aspects of this country and area of the world that Americans should be aware of,\u201d wrote Stacy, who was killed in action at age 25.<\/p>\n<p>The Greifers were reminded of the lost letters after watching the recent PBS documentary \u201cThe Vietnam War.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They contacted Washington Post columnist John Kelly, who wrote a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/for-decades-one-familys-vietnam-war-pain-lay-hidden-behind-a-wall\/2017\/10\/01\/545c5f40-a625-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>moving tribute<\/em><\/a>\u00a0to Stacy based on the letters and other items found behind the drywall, including photos and newspaper clippings.<\/p>\n<p>Kelly also\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/remembering-bill-stacy-jr-killed-in-vietnam-remembered-in-silver-spring\/2017\/10\/02\/9dd06b2a-a789-11e7-b3aa-c0e2e1d41e38_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>tracked down<\/em><\/a>\u00a0the soldier\u2019s younger brother Art, who recalled the pain his parents felt when Bill was killed. Art Stacy doesn\u2019t know how the letters ended up in the walls of his family\u2019s old house.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI doubt they were left there by accident,\u201d he said. \u201cIt may be that Dad wanted to just leave it, to make [the painful memories] disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The letters, photos and newspaper clippings connected to Bill Stacy that were recently discovered behind the drywall of a Silver Spring, MD, home. Image: The Washington Post USPS News Link &#8211; 10\/12\/17 &#8211; For nearly 20 years, Susan and John Greifer kept letters they found hidden behind the drywall of their Silver Spring, MD, home [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21263,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21262\/revisions\/21263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}