ARLINGTON, Texas - eTradeWire -- Posted Courtesy of Wright Enterprises Community Spotlight San Francisco ~ Dallas

Valentine's Day 2025- It is not often that thoughts of romance coincide with the dead and buried.  Yet for one military family, the love of Sp5 Wyley Wright Jr. and Ouida McLendon Wright,  decades gone from this earth, stands strong at Arlington National Cemetery.   They left four children behind March 9, 1964 and March 9, 1970 respectively.  Their love was shattered when Wyley, 32 years-old, died as a patriot and hero, an "Honor Guard" for then Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara, two weeks before his expected return home from the Vietnam War.

Ouida, "The love of his life," six years later to the day, at age 35, followed her dearly loved husband in death, leaving behind children, Jackie, 16, Joe,14, Stanley, 11, and Phyllis, 6 years of age.  The Wrights' children believe their mother's death due to pancreatic cancer was the result of "war widowhood effect" and its impact of sudden traumatic loss; social isolation; economic hardship and youth as many war widows are young.

The Wright children some five decades after their father's death combined their resources to honor their father and mother when it was found that their father, a war hero, who had flown over 300 meritorious missions in one year for the 114th Aviation Company out of Fort Knox, Kentucky  as a helicopter crew chief, was buried in a deteriorating segregated cemetery in his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida.

The Wright siblings had their parents, who had been separated for fifty years, reburied at Arlington National Cemetery, March 10, 2014 in a ceremony titled "Love Separated in Life…Love Reunited in Honor."  They are buried at the intersection of York and Halsey, Section 59, Grave 4977. The San Francisco Bayview Newspaper ran the article "Love Story at Arlington": https://sfbayview.com/2015/04/love-story-at-arlington-national-cemetery/

March 10, 2024 marked the tenth anniversary of the reburial of Sp5 Wyley Wright Jr. and Ouida F. Wright and the Wright Family commemorated the occasion as noted by Arlington National Cemetery: "Family Honors Ten Year Anniversary of Couple Buried at ANC" https://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Blog/Post/13473/Family-Honors-Ten-Year-Anniversary-of-Couple-Buried-at-ANC   and "Broadway World:" "Bay Area Artists to Perform at the Tenth Anniversary Commemoration of LOVE SEPARATED IN LIFE…LOVE REUNITED IN HONOR"

https://www.broadwayworld.com/san-francisco/article/Bay-Area-Artists-to-Perform-at-the-Tenth-Anniversary-Commemoration-of-LOVE-SEPARATED-IN-LIFELOVE-REUNITED-IN-HONOR-20240225

"'Love Separated in Life…Love Reunited in Honor; is not a sad occasion"  the eldest son, a U.S. Army Veteran, and pastor, Joe N. Wright, said in 2014, noting the achievement of the Wrights having brought their parents together again in the honorable and sacred grounds as they were laid to rest in Section 59, Grave 4977 at Arlington National Cemetery.  Yet the 2024 commemoration as jubilant as it was had a deep bittersweet undertone although love songs of Nat King Cole were sung by performers, Opera singer Hope Briggs and America's Got Talent finalist Lawrence Beamen. "Atlanta's Song Bird," actress and podcast host, Sylvia Camille, Ouida's niece, sung a favorite hymn.  It was a mixture of joy and sorrow because the voices of Joe N. Wright, who died February 23, 2022 and his wife Brenda M. Wright, who died November 18, 2018, were silenced for the "Tenth Anniversary Commemoration of Love Reunited."

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"We used the occasion to dedicate the commemoration to high school sweethearts, Joe and Brenda, who had a love story that began at Baker High School in Columbus, Georgia that mostly consisted of military families," said Jackie Wright, a publicist, writer, filmmaker and resident of Arlington and San Francisco. " Our spirits were lifted as we dedicated the ceremony and debuted the film, "Love Separated in Life…Love Reunited in Honor" now dedicated to Joe and Brenda.  It's all about love when it hurts the most, especially when you're unexpectedly separated from the ones you love."

In concert with the theme of love, just weeks before the tenth anniversary commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery, the award-winning film co-produced by Joe N. Wright, was selected for the Italian International Film Festival: https://www.prlog.org/13007576-love-separated-in-lifelove-reunited-in-honor-selected-for-the-italy-international-film-festival.html.  "It was encouraging to us as we were planning to honor our loving parents with a dedication to Joe and Brenda that one of the most romantic places in the world, Italy would screen our love story," said Stanley Wright, owner of "Done Wright Trucking" in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

The Wright Family's love marked at Arlington National Cemetery shows that love is generational and can be found in what some would consider  an unlikely place.  "It happened at Arlington National Cemetery and "Love Separated in Life…Love Reunited in honor," the film  is a humanitarian story that links through love, Black and White families, Asian families, over all the human family all over the world," said Phyllis Cameron, an Insurance executive based in Atlanta, Georgia. "In our story, we remember the young PFC John Francis Shea, the White Roman Catholic youth of Willimantic, Connecticut, a member of the U.S. Army 560th Military Police, three weeks from his 21st Birthday. "The day our father and John Francis Shea died it was as if the United Nations had gathered, there in the Mekong River, a Vietnamese diver, Tran Van Tham found the wreckage of UH 1B 62-01961, a Latino pilot Captain Emilio Zamora hovered over to assist White and Black soldiers in the recovery of our dad and his young comrade.  We touch each other's lives in ways that we often miss because we don't take enough time to consider," added Cameron.  It was almost 50 years when the Wright Children found out their lives touched the Shannon Family of Lynchburg, VA.  Comrades of the 114th Aviation Company renamed their base in honor of Sp5 Wyley Wright Jr. and 1Lt Kenneth Arthur Shannon, a pilot who was shot down six days after Sp5 Wright on March 15, 1964. It was named "The Shannon Wright Compound."  Their names are together on "The Wall," panel 1 E of "The Vietnam Veterans Memorial" designed by Chinese American Maya Lin.

"The Love Story at Arlington" commemorated by two ceremonies and a 15-minute documentary named for the original ceremony "Love Separated in Life…Love Reunited in Honor" can be found at www.lovereunited.org.  The short documentary was written and directed by Jackie Wright with the help of editor and director Jack LiVolsi, CEO of Jackson Street Productions in San Francisco. .  It includes a visit to Viet Nam, where the Wright sisters meet the family of Vietnamese artist, Quang Van Phat, who made the last wedding anniversary gifts that Sp5 Wright sent to his wife of eleven years, Ouida Fay Wright.The film has an associated "how to" booklet "Picture This" and the project includes an Honor Guard Program.  For more information contact Jackie Wright at 415 525 0410 or lovereunited2014@gmail.com.

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Documentary Trailers

Military Honors Excerpt in Film TRT 1:11

https://youtu.be/jQT7nUoHqko



Love Reunited Trailer TRT 1:37

https://youtu.be/9mgDPv012gQ



Love Reunited TRT :30 Seconds

https://vimeo.com/236990657