Richard Hatzenbuhler of Rapid City didn't talk much about his service in Vietnam.

The 20-year Navy veteran spent 1962-1963 in the Southeast Asian country, but that's about all his daughter, Paula, ever heard.

He died in 2003 at age 72 after a long battle with cancer - multiple myeloma - triggered by his exposure to Agent Orange.

On Monday, April 20, Hatzenbuhler and 122 other veterans whose deaths were Vietnam-related but don't meet the Department of Defense's requirements to be added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial will be honored in the nation's capital.

"We didn't have any idea in the beginning of Dad's cancer - no one ever thought about Agent Orange. We just knew he had terminal cancer," Paula Hatzenbuhler of Longmont, Colo., said. "I wanted him to be honored for the service."

The In Memory Day ceremony has been recognizing veterans who died prematurely of noncombat-related injuries and illnesses for 11 years, said Lisa Gough, spokeswoman for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.

The memorial in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 1982, its famous black granite walls inscribed with the names of 57,939 veterans who died or were still missing in action, according to its Web site.

Names have been added as more information has become available, but the Department of Defense only allows those veterans who died from combat injuries to be listed.

Most In Memory Day honorees died of cancer from Agent Orange exposure or as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder, Gough said.

"The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was built to honor everyone that served in Vietnam, not just those that died or remain missing," Gough said. "This gives us another opportunity to pay tribute to those who served and sacrificed in the Vietnam War."

Loved ones nominate veterans to be honored, and to date, more than 1,800 veterans have been memorialized, Gough said.

At the ceremony, the name of each veteran is read aloud, along with those of all the previous honorees.

Family members lay tributes at the wall, which are later collected by the National Park Service to become part of the memorial's permanent archives, Gough said.

"A lot of them come every year to do this," Gough said. "This ceremony has a lot of meaning for them."

Hatzenbuhler said she and her mother, Norma, plan to be at Monday's ceremony to watch as her father finally gets the respect he deserves for dying for his country.

"The government wasn't honoring the people. They were only doing the MIAs and killed in Vietnam. All the other people that died of all these complications weren't being honored at all," Hatzenbuhler said.

"Starting to acknowledge these things, it's an awesome thing."

For an online list of all 123 Vietnam veterans being honored at the In Memory Day ceremony, go to www.vvmf.org/index.cfm?SectionID=774

Contact Emilie Rusch at 394-8453 or emilie.rusch@rapidcityjournal.com