JACKSONVILLE – Wyley Wright was one of the first soldiers to die in the Vietnam War.
His body was returned to Jacksonville and buried at Mount Olive cemetery, but it wouldn’t stay there because it was a segregated cemetery.
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His body was eventually exhumed, and he and his wife lay at Arlington National Cemetery.
Wright’s daughter, Jackie, returned to Jacksonville to honor her father one more time through the Jacksonville Film Festival.
Jackie Wright’s love for her father is endless as she told his story.
Wright wrote politicians in Washington imploring that his body be exhumed from Mount Olive, and ultimately enough money was raised to have the body moved.
“He did not give a segregated sacrifice when he gave his life to the service of our country,” Jackie Wright said.
On March 10, 2014, Wyley Wright and his wife were buried at Arlington National Cemetary.
Years later, Jackie Wright traveled to Vietnam to find out where her father lived during the war and found the compound named after him and another soldier. Its called the Shannon Wright compound.
With each journey, she decided to honor her father’s life again. This time, through the Jacksonville Film Festival.
She created a short film about her father’s life and burial at Arlington National Cemetery for veterans. The story was for fallen soldiers and their families.
“I just thought the film was important for people to start looking at what happens when you lose a loved one,” she said. “It was important to let other military families know it is important to express their grief in order for them to heal and move on.”
Wright and her siblings have found peace in honoring their father, who was a solider, a purple heart recipient, and husband. He was a man who deserved to be honored for his ultimate sacrifice.
Wright said she also hopes this short film will remind city officials that the cemeteries in northernJacksonville need to be renovated brought up to the standards they were previously. She wrote them a letter this week and is waiting to hear back from the city.