Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 7, 1995                   TAG: 9504070088
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

MAIMED VA. VETERAN HONORED ON EVE OF SCHOOL DEDICATION

The school dedicated to Puller will open in the old wartime demilitarized zone on April 24, just a few weeks shy of a year after Puller killed himself in his Northern Virginia home.

``I know how much this meant to him,'' said Sen. Charles Robb, D-Va., as he unveiled a model of a portrait of Puller that will hang at the school.

Puller, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his wrenching autobiography, ``Fortunate Son,'' returned to Vietnam a year before he died. He said he was deeply affected by the poverty and illiteracy he found, and he began to raise money for schools.

``I think Lew Puller perhaps more than many others in our society recognized early on that healing was an extraordinarily important part of the process,'' said Robb, a former Marine who also served in Vietnam.

Puller killed himself May 11 in apparent despair over the failure of his marriage and a relapse into abuse of painkillers.

His widow, Linda ``Toddy'' Puller, called his death a delayed casualty of war.

Puller's father is the famed and heavily decorated Marine Lewis B. ``Chesty'' Puller, who cast a long shadow on his son.

Puller, who earned two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star in Vietnam, returned from the war horribly maimed and deeply bitter. Both legs and parts of both hands were gone. He used a wheelchair and suffered continuing pain the rest of his life.