This past Wednesday, a Valparaiso man had the chance of a lifetime to honor his son in a special way thanks to the honor flight program that flew him to Washington with a hundred other world war two vets.

Ed Kudlacek waited years to take a walk down a path to his past. Kudlacek came to Washington with the Honor Flight group because of his service during WWII, but a side trip to the Vietnam Wall meant even more.

September 28, 1971 is the day Ed Kudlacek's son earned a place on the Vietnam wall. Kudlacek came to see it for himself.

"I've seen the wall before, but it was the traveling wall," he said.

Kudlacek would find his son's name in section 2W among the more than 58,000 names of veterans killed in Vietnam.

Kudlacek's son was a gunner on a helicopter. That helicopter crashed in Phuoc Long, South Vietnam, killing 20-year-old Sgt. Edwin Allen Kudlacek.

Kudlacek said his son was a regular American guy. "He thought a lot of his country and stuff. It just shouldn't have happened, I guess. That's all as far as I'm concerned," he said.

Kudlacek said the trip, the walk, meant a lot to him, but its a meaning hard to put into words.

Sgt. Edwin Allen Kudlacek Would have celebrated his 57th birthday last Monday.