News Sentinel Staff

Fred Hunter Richmond III of Knoxville and Claude Edward Goble of Loudon are two of more than 300 Vietnam veterans to be inducted this year into the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund's In Memory Program, according to a news release.

The program honors Vietnam veterans whose lives were cut short as a result of their service in Vietnam, but are not eligible for inscription on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial under Department of Defense guidelines.

Richmond, born July 24, 1939, served in the Navy. He died Jan. 26, 2005. Goble, who served in the Army, was born May 7, 1945, and died Sept. 30, 2012.

Other 2016 inductees from Tennessee include Charles Edson Crone (June 5, 1947-June 7, 2013) of Shelbyville, who served in the Air Force; Royce Allen Davenport (Oct. 28, 1947-July 1, 2014) of McMinnville, Army; John Joseph Donnelly (Nov. 30, 1931-Dec. 21, 2013) of Henderson, Air Force; Lynn Richard Johnson (Aug. 24, 1949-Feb. 14, 2015) of Fall Branch, Army; William Roger Jordan (Nov. 14, 1943-Dec. 1, 2013) of Lewisburg, Army; Weldon Gene Keymon (Feb. 1, 1946-June 17, 1998) of Savannah, Army; Larry Eugene Letterman (Aug. 3, 1946-April 9, 2013) of Elizabethton, Army; William Robert Paschall (Oct. 11, 1943-Nov. 6, 2013) of Linden, Army; and Jimmy Ralph Perkins (Nov. 19, 1943-Nov. 15, 2008) of Chattanooga, Air Force.

On June 18, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will host more than 2,000 attendees at the annual ceremony on the East Knoll of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. This year, 312 service members will be honored. The master of ceremonies will be Capt. Denis Faherty.

During the ceremony, names of all honorees are read aloud and certificates bearing the honorees' names are placed at the memorial. The certificates are later collected by the National Park Service and stored in a permanent archive.

The In Memory program began in 1999 and has honored more than 2,500 veterans, according to the news release. A plaque honoring the veterans was dedicated as a part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 2004. It reads: "In Memory of the men and women who served in the Vietnam War and later died as a result of their service. We honor and remember their sacrifice."

For more information on the In Memory program, please visit: www.vvmf.org/inmemory.

To learn more about VVMF and the Education Center at The Wall, visit www.vvmf.org or call 866-990-WALL.