MANHATTAN (CN) - A federal judge granted U.S. citizenship to a decorated Vietnam veteran who stabbed and killed his wife, then made a remarkable turnaround in prison. "No man is beyond redemption," Judge Denny Chin wrote.
Chin, recently appointed to the 2nd Circuit, was sitting by designation in U.S. District Court.
When he heard of the ruling, Vernon Lawson told Courthouse News in a telephone interview, "I felt that I had everything in the world that I needed. I love this country so dearly. I don't know anything but this country."
Lawson's attorney told Courthouse News that many Vietnam War veterans face situations similar to her client.
Born in Jamaica in 1946, Lawson became a legal permanent resident when he immigrated with his mother at 14, after his parents divorced. For most of the time since then, he has lived in the same apartment in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem. He said that he was in that apartment when he heard the news that he would become a citizen.
Lawson dropped out of high school to enlist in the Marines at 18, and served one 13-month tour of combat in Vietnam.
"I liked the spirit of the Marine Corps," Lawson testified at his hearing. "I liked what they stood for."
Assigned duty as "an antitank assault man," Lawson said that he and his unit were pinned down by 50-caliber machineguns for "some days" while trying to protect a rice crop during Operation Harvest Moon.
Court documents show how Lawson described the operation at his naturalization hearing.
"[M]e and a fellow Marine was told to go and bury a Vietcong that was smelling up the place in front of our company, in front of the section," Lawson said. "And we went out there to bury him, and we lifted him up to put him in the little hole that we had dug, his arms came off in mine, and it was a horrible experience for me that I keep remembering all my life."
Lawson testified that he was ordered to keep watch over a "dead Vietcong" whose body was put "on display" and burn down thatched homes with flamethrowers on helicopter sweeps. He told the court that it was difficult to keep track of all the friends who died.
"I lost friends in Vietnam," Lawson testified. "But sometimes when you're in a war and you lose friends, you don't you don't even know when they die. ... You don't know when they died. You hear an explosion and you know someone died, but you don't see where they actually died because you might be a quarter mile from where it took place." (Ellipsis in original)
One of those friends, who he had known since basic training, was shot in the head, "apparently accidentally," by another Marine, court documents state.
Lawson testified that he drank heavily in Vietnam and smoked cheap and readily available opium to take "the edge off."
In 1966, Lawson returned to the United States, and was honorably discharged from the Marines a year later, with numerous medals and commendations, including the Vietnam Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Campaign Medal, the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, a Presidential Unit Citation, and the Navy Commendation Medal.
