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A Weekend To Remember Love Ones Lost

By: Markette Smith // May 25, 2012
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The fountain at the U.S. Navy Memorial, where many will come this weekend to remember and honor the fallen.
Santi Diaz: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tikun/3686769201/
The fountain at the U.S. Navy Memorial, where many will come this weekend to remember and honor the fallen.

A Kentucky woman with Virginia roots traveled to Washington this weekend to remember her late husband, a retired Naval Commander. Mary Bower-Keef is a navy wife, two times over. Her current husband is a retired Navy Captain, but she came all the way to Washington this weekend to pay tribute to her first love.

"My first husband was Duane Bruce Bower, and he died in 1996," said Bower-Keef.

Married at 18, they had two children together and moved 28 times.

"He was absolutely dedicated to his country," she remembers.

Mary shakes her head, still obviously grieving from his passing. Today, she is sponsoring a commemorative plaque in her late husband's name at the U.S. Navy Memorial. The Vietnam vet is buried at the National Memorial Cemetary of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.

"And his family was a little distressed that he was so far away and they're from Silver Spring, Md. and I just thought it was important to have something here in the mainland that they could get to," she said.

His name will soon be featured on a wall filled with brushed aluminum plates for all to see and remember.

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