Honor roll includes 3 Westmoreland men whose cancer deaths followed service in Vietnam

James Sumner of Greensburg lost a battle with cancer just more than a year ago, at 76.

New Kensington’s Donald Penzera, formerly of Greensburg, lost his in 2006, when he was 56.

Floyd Serbanjak of Herminie was 23 when he succumbed to the disease in 1974.

The three Westmoreland County men shared more than a cancer diagnosis. Each was a veteran and a casualty of the Vietnam War.

While they were not killed in action, they all died after returning home from a disease linked to their service in the war that ended nearly a half-century ago.

They’re among 513 Vietnam veterans, including 32 others from Pennsylvania, whose names and images are being added this year to an In Memory Program website. The site is maintained by the nonprofit Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund to recognize those who served in the war and died later.

Their names also will be read during a ceremony at 10 a.m. Saturday on the East Knoll of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The ceremony will be livestreamed on the VVMF Facebook page.

“For many Vietnam veterans, coming home from Vietnam was just the beginning of a whole new fight,” said Jim Knotts, president and CEO of VVMF.

Thousands of veterans suffered from exposure to Agent Orange herbicide, post-traumatic stress disorder and other illnesses stemming from their service.

“Many never fully recovered, either physically or emotionally, from their experiences,” Knotts said. “As these veterans pass, it is our duty and solemn promise to welcome them home to the place that our nation has set aside to remember our Vietnam veterans.”

Because they weren’t killed in action, Sumner, Penzera and Serbanjak won’t have their names added to the memorial wall in the nation’s capital. But they are among service members honored with a plaque added to the site in 2004 “in memory of the men and women who served in the Vietnam War and later died as a result of their service.”

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs recognizes about 20 maladies, including several types of cancer, as “presumptive diseases associated with exposure to Agent Orange or other herbicides during military service.”

Penzera “had almost every one of those cancers,” as well as PTSD, said his sister, Jan Mikan of Ligonier, who submitted documentation to have him included in the In Memory Program.

“He was diagnosed with cancer probably two years before he died. It spread everywhere,” she said. “This war ended a long time ago, but the effects didn’t. He suffered terribly.”

Penzera turned 18 while at Marines boot camp and served on the front lines in Vietnam.

“He was a machine gunner and a mortar man, and he was a lance corporal when he re-enlisted in the Air Force,” Mikan said.

Then he was stationed at Da Nang Air Base.

“They heavily sprayed the foliage in the jungle around it with Agent Orange so they could keep the vegetation down and keep the snipers out,” Mikan said.

Now laid to rest in the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies in Cecil, Penzera worked in the construction field as a civilian. Among those he left behind were a daughter and a grandson.

A Marine Corps captain who was awarded the Purple Heart, Sumner was stationed at the service branch’s D.C. headquarters. He met his wife, Roxie, there after his tour in Vietnam, according to biographical information posted on the In Memory website.

After leaving the military in 1970, he worked for 40 years in the railroad supply and steel industries. He was president of Edgewater/Oakmont Steel and Pennsylvania Cold Drawn Steel. He volunteered with the Salvation Army and was an officer with the Service Corps of Retired Executives.

He died June 3, 2021, after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma attributed to exposure to Agent Orange during his service in Vietnam. Interred in Arlington National Cemetery, he is survived by his wife of more than 51 years, two children and several grandchildren.

According to biographical information submitted to the In Memory site by a sister, Marcia Aufinger, Serbanjak worked as a machine operator for Elliott Co. in Jeannette after serving in the Army.

Serbanjak was engaged to be married but never made it to the altar, according to his sister.

“All the arrangements were made, the bride had her gown, then Floyd was diagnosed with cancer and given four months to live,” she wrote. “He died in the hospital before that could happen.

“He could have had a new beginning, a wonderful life being a husband and a father, if not for the cancer death.”

Mikan and several family members will attend Saturday’s ceremony honoring Penzera. He also is among veterans honored with banners displayed along downtown Greensburg streets as part of the city’s Hometown Hero program.

“They just were never recognized properly from the Vietnam era,” Mikan said of her brother and veterans like him. “It’s way past time.”

Initiated in 1993, the In Memory Program has honored more than 5,600 Vietnam veterans on its website. Images of program inductees from a particular state are displayed along with The Wall That Heals, a mobile replica of the D.C. memorial, when it makes a stop in that state.

Visit vvmf.org/inmemory for more information about the In Memory Program.