PORT LUDLOW — Carol Brannan, left a Port Ludlow widow last year when her husband of 36 years died of Agent Orange-related cancer, will be one of more than 1,000 expected to attend the seventh annual In Memory Day Ceremony in Washington, D.C., on Monday.
The ceremony takes place at “The Wall” — the Vietnam Veterans Memorial — and is sponsored by the Alexandria, Va.-based Non Commissioned Officers Association of the USA.
Edward J. Brannan Jr. will be honored as one of 137 “American war heroes” who died prematurely from Agent Orange exposure and other Vietnam War-related illnesses.
Ed Brannan, who lived with Carol in Port Ludlow since 2000, died June 7, 2004, of septic shock secondary to chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
He was 59 and his illness forced the active career accountant who loved to ski and sail to retire at 55.
Toxic defoliant
The military in January 2003 acknowledged his illness was the result of his exposure to Agent Orange, an agriculturally originated toxic herbicide used to defoliate the dense jungle in Phu Bai, Vietnam.
Brannan, a naval reservist, served a 10-month tour in Southeast Asia after he was called to active duty in 1970.
“It was just long enough to kill him,” says Carol Brannan, who calls Vietnam “a stupid war.”
“May this country learn something from his story and think long and hard before going to war,” she writes in her tribute to the man she dearly loves.
The tribute will be placed with others at the base of The Wall, and Brannan will read her husband’s name out loud during the ceremony.
