LINCOLN — Every year, a wreath is placed on the grave of Beryl Zich.

It has been a solemn tradition since her death in 2005, a way to pay tribute to her love and dedication for her son, Larry, a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War, who was listed as missing in action until his remains were identified in 2022.

The flowers aren’t from a traditional veterans organization, but from a group of inmates at the Nebraska State Penitentiary.

For more than 40 years, a “veterans club” has been among the betterment groups allowed to form at the state’s oldest prison.

Her boys

Along the way, the 25-40 inmates/veterans who gather twice a month behind prison walls got interested in the MIAs and prisoners of war from the Vietnam War. Eventually, they connected with Beryl Zich, the mother of an MIA, who began coming to the State Pen for their meetings.

She eventually referred to the veterans club members as “my boys” as the years passed, and as her son — who disappeared during a mission in 1972 — remained missing.

“Sometimes, I think those boys are the only ones who care,” she once remarked.

Jaime Obrecht and Roy Schoen, two long-time volunteers for the inmate club, related that story and others about the prison veterans organization at the 39th annual Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Reunion held this past weekend at the Marriott Cornhusker Hotel in Lincoln.

The first motto for the State Pen veterans’ organization was “Forgotten and Disowned,” which, Schoen said, was how a lot of veterans felt back in the 1980s.

“We had a chip on our shoulder for quite a few years for how we were treated,” said Schoen, an Army veteran and a retired counselor with the veterans center in Lincoln.

He and Obrecht, a retired Lincoln teacher, first began volunteering with the prison group back in 1984, shortly after it was formed.

A war that ended 49 years ago

The Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Reunion began in 1985, Schoen said. It was organized by a group of vets who felt that a gathering would be helpful, not only to share stories and common experiences, but learn more about veterans benefits and organizations.

“There wasn’t much going on back then for (Vietnam) veterans,” he said. “Things have changed quite a bit. Slowly.”

About 300 veterans and their spouses registered for this year’s reunion, which included presentations about the State Pen’s Veterans Club, Agent Orange, a book about fallen veterans from Norfolk (see sidebar) and the evacuation from Afghanistan. The state office of Veterans Affairs also offered remarks.

There were a lot of dark-blue “Vietnam Veteran” ball caps among the participants, as well as MIA/POW shoulder patches and veterans’ reunion T-shirts. Some aging vets used canes to walk, or carried small tanks of supplemental oxygen, a testament to the advancing age of soldiers who served in a war that ended 49 years ago.

The reunion serves many of the same needs as the veterans club at the State Pen, said Schoen and Obrecht — bringing those with common experiences, and challenges, together.

The State Pen’s club has several projects besides the annual wreath on the grave of Beryl Zich, said Obrecht.

Club members have made more than 511,000 red, paper poppies for the American Legion Auxiliary, which distributes them as a tribute and fundraiser on the Friday before every Memorial Day, he said. More recently, club members have been crocheting hats and scarfs for residents of the state veterans home in Kearney.

Special housing unit

But club members have also served as mentors that “police themselves” in the sometimes challenging world of prison, Obrecht said. At times, they’ve served as informal counselors for inmates/veterans struggling with post-traumatic stress syndrome, Schoen said.

In 2016, the state corrections department established a special housing unit exclusively for military veterans, which the two volunteers said has been greatly appreciated by the inmates who live there.

“It really was a remarkable change,” Schoen said. “They were more relaxed, they didn’t have to deal with all the craziness in the rest of the prison.”

Obrecht said the club meetings at the State Pen are much like the meetings held by the Legion or VFW — there’s a business meeting, followed by reports on projects and then an hour for visiting.

The club holds annual programs on Memorial Day and Veterans Day, and purchased the black MIA/POW flags that fly on the flagpole at the State Pen. They also helped obtain new headstones for inmate/veterans buried at the State Pen’s cemetery outside the prison walls atop Grasshopper Hill.

He said they especially like contributing to causes that help veterans on the outside, such as the annual wreath for Beryl Zich.

“I can’t imagine what it’s like to live (in prison) … but the club gives them something to take pride in,” Obrecht said.