Vietnam Vet Seeks King and Queen Connection

Rene Muniz contacted King and Queen County offices looking for information regarding the Langford family and was given a contact number for the King and Queen County Historical Society. The Society and its Tavern Museum get requests for genealogy on a regular basis, but this was no ordinary request. Rene and his wife Karen planned to visit the grave of Lewis Langford, a casualty of the Vietnam War who is buried at Providence Methodist Church. He wanted to contact the family if possible. Lewis died in Vietnam in February 1968 and Rene was his friend. Though they had known each other only a few months, their friendship was important enough to Rene, after 50 years, to come from his home in Michigan to King and Queen County to stand beside the grave of the young man he calls Lew.

The use of old Marriott School annuals, social media, and local connections, helped in locating Lewis’s brother, Jonah, who agreed to meet Rene. They remembered Lewis, remembered Vietnam, remembered themselves when they were young men, and demonstrated the difficulties in coming to terms with those memories. From the Tavern, the group proceeded to the Providence Church cemetery on Poor House Lane. Lewis’s gravestone displays not only his name and dates, but also his rank and unit with a Black Cats symbol, and that he died in Vietnam. Lewis lies next to his mother, Bessie, who lived another 30 years after Lewis’s death. Beyond Bessie lies Lewis’s father, Russell Langford, Sr. These graves are lovingly decorated with flowers placed by the family and Lewis’s grave is also graced by a small American flag. In accordance with the traditions of the company, Rene left a medallion called a challenge coin on Lewis’s gravestone. He explained the tradition this way: a symbol that Military units use as a ‘Challenge” by the one who presents the coin, to all those who are present and do not have the coin, to buy a round of beer. Besides being a message to others, these coins will be used by Lewis to buy me a beer when we meet again.

After handshakes and hugs and promises to keep in touch, the group went its separate ways thinking of Lewis and Rene, of promises made and promises kept. It was a remarkable and unforgettable day. Dawn Shank, Linda Barnes and Page McLemore were the docents on duty that day at the Museum and were honored to have witnessed this occasion. The entire article, “Promises Made, Promises Kept”, may be read in the 2017 Summer edition of Tales From the Tavern.