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October 20, 2004
A Vietnam Veteran's Final Act
The Las Vegas Sun is reporting that a Las Vegan's last act before dying was to vote for George W. Bush. But they got it only partly correct. The headline should have read "Vietnam Veteran's Uses His Final Act to Vote for Bush."
Voting was a patriotic responsibility that Las Vegan Alton Lee Overton did not take lightly.
Fifty years ago, he voted for the first time when he turned 21. While serving in the Air Force in Vietnam, he voted by absentee ballot. As a Las Vegas resident of 17 years, he walked across the street from his home near Nellis Boulevard and Desert Inn Road each Election Day to vote at a school.
Diagnosed with terminal lung cancer this past summer, Overton, a Republican, was determined to vote for President George W. Bush if it was the last thing he did.
It pretty much was.
Overton awoke Sunday and asked his wife for his mail-in ballot, filled it out, signed it, sealed it and asked a family member to immediately take it to a nearby mail box and drop it in. Six hours later, he died, three months to the day after he was diagnosed with cancer. He was 71.
Gertrude Anne Overton, Alton's high school sweetheart and wife of 54 years, said "It was his last wish to vote in this election," she said. "When he fulfilled that final wish yesterday, you could see it was such a great weight off of him. He died peacefully in his sleep."
Thank you Alton Overton, for your service to this Country in the Vietnam War. Rest in peace.
Posted by LindaSoG at October 20, 2004 09:58 AM