ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 31, 1996 TAG: 9604010054
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: BOB DART COX NEWS SERVICE
note: below
Sitting in a wheelchair beside the black wall of names, Robert Plato wept openly Saturday as he prepared to rejoin his comrades who fell so long ago in Vietnam.
``I'm dying of cancer,'' said the former Army sergeant from Cable, Ohio. ``My last dying wish'' was to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
``When I leave here today, I'll leave with peace in my heart,'' said Plato, his face gaunt beneath a cap bearing the yellow-and-black emblem of the 1st Cavalry Division, his unit during two Vietnam tours from 1968 through 1970.
Nearby, Sheila Meyer choked back tears as she watched her brother touch a chiseled name on the wall. The robust body of the young soldier she remembers has shrunk to 114 pounds and been bent by pain. Cancer has spread from Plato's lungs to his back, stomach, liver and pancreas.
``I was 8 when he went to 'Nam,'' recalled Meyer. ``I thought he was 10 feet tall. He was my hero.''
``Bobby is just 50 - too young to die,`` said Jackie Dockery, another sister. ``I'm the big sister, and he's still my baby brother.''
The family had driven all night from Ohio in a van borrowed from a deacon of Grace Baptist Church in Urbana. Their sad mission has been a reunion of sorts. The Meyers live in Cable, but Jackie Dockery and her husband, Robert, had come from Bee Branch, Ark. Another brother, Eugene Plato, had come from upstate New York.
Mercifully, ``Bobby slept most of the way,'' Sheila Meyer said. ``But we talked and talked.''
In recent weeks, Robert Plato has been at a hospice in a Veterans Affairs medical center in Dayton. A former truck driver at a lumber yard in Springfield, he is divorced with three grown sons, none of whom could make the trip to Washington. An assortment of in-laws, nephews and nieces did come, however.
``Bobby'' never really got over his war experiences, said Meyer. ``He still has nightmares from Vietnam. He talks in his sleep about it.''
The cancer is terminal, Meyer said, and the family was afraid that Plato would die before fulfilling his dream of visiting the Vietnam Memorial. But once the trip began, her brother rallied.
``We stopped at a Burger King, and he ate a few little pieces of French toast and he kept it down,'' Meyer said. ``He hasn't taken any pain medicine, because he wanted to make sure he remembers everything that happens here.''
Rep. Tony Hall, D-Ohio, met the family at the memorial and walked with them as Eugene Plato slowly pushed his brother's wheelchair from one end to the other, then back again. After wanting to visit for so long, Robert Plato was in no hurry to leave. He talked about his thoughts at seeing this stark remembrance of those Americans who died in the war that seared his generation as well as his own life.
``Half my heart was here and half was still in Vietnam and half was floating somewhere in between,'' he said. ``My heart is really, really in that wall. ... So many people were killed needlessly.''
There was no special buddy who died in 'Nam that he sought out, though.
``I've forgotten names over all these years,'' he admitted.
``I'm just glad we could make his dream come true. This brings us all closer together,'' said Jackie Dockery, watching as TV cameras recorded her brother's journey along the long black wall. ``This is Bobby's day.''
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP Vietnam veteran Robert Plato touches the Vietnamby CNBVeterans Memorial Saturday with his brother, Eugene, behind him.
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