A LETTER HE WAITED 56 YEARS TO RECEIVE — Tustin, Calif., resident Vince Maranto received a letter from a woman he has wondered about for the last 56 years. After seeking the assistance of the Herald-Star staff and Tri-State Area residents, he located Claudia Lynn Henry, a junior at Kent State who wrote him while serving in the Vietnam War. Maranto simply wanted to thank her for what she did and find out if she remembered him. -- Contributed

STEUBENVILLE — Vince Maranto is a name you may remember.

He is the 76-year-old Tustin, Calif., man who served with the Marines during the Vietnam War. He is the man who, during that war, received several letters from a girl he had never met.

A girl by the name of Claudia Lynn Henry … or Lynn, as she preferred to be called.

Lynn was a junior attending Kent State University and majoring in childhood education. Being from Steubenville, she wrote letters to the Marine about what life was like in that small Ohio town.

She penned of the happenings taking place at the college and from all over the world, for the year was 1969 and there were astronauts preparing to land on the moon. She wrote of her love for the ocean, and always ended each letter with a poem.

Their conversations helped Maranto get through the war, he explained, saying her letters were “inspiring and informative, honest and revealing, fun and upbeat and written to me at a time I so desperately needed all of the above.”

He had always wanted to thank that girl who had selected his name from her university’s bulletin board — simply because she liked it best out of the GI list the school provided.

The letters continued back and forth from May through September in 1969, right before Maranto was told he would be going home.

It was joyful chaos as 1,000 men quickly packed their gear to return to the states.

Their belongings, however, did not make that same trip. No, those 1,000 men were not returning home, but rather, being taken to Okinawa in case things flared up in Vietnam again.

Maranto’s luggage was now gone, and with it, his letters from Lynn. He did not remember her address, and only remembered a fraction of her family’s address in Steubenville.

But still, he tried writing her, hoping the postal service would somehow forward his letters to the correct house. He needed to explain why he was no longer answering her letters. After returning to the United States, he spent $20 in coins at a pay phone off base.

Yet, all he received on the other end of the line were wrong numbers, special operators or people who hung up on him. He called the university, too, but was told they couldn’t give out any information.

Time went on and Maranto learned his best friend from high school had been killed in a car accident while he was serving overseas. Through the grief, he became close with that friend’s sister. They were later married.

A year after his return, Maranto finally received the items he had hurriedly packed back in Vietnam, including most of Lynn’s letters. Some had been lost, but the ones he still possessed were tied with a green boot strap and placed alongside his uniform in a footlocker inside his family’s storage facility in Tustin.

Maranto wrote to the Herald-Star for help, being as it was her hometown newspaper in the hopes someone might know what happened to her.

He wanted to thank her or at least let her family know how precious those letters were to him during that time when all he knew was war. But no one responded.

Still wanting to help, staff searched online and found an address where she was registered to vote. That address was passed along to Maranto, who wrote a letter to that Florida home.

Shortly after, a letter came back to him.

No, it was not a “return to sender,” or “address unknown.” It was a handwriting he recalled seeing before.

It was a letter he had been waiting almost 56 years to read.

Although it wasn’t lengthy, Lynn wrote saying that yes, she is indeed Lynn Henry Schmitt from Steubenville and remembers fondly the letters they shared while attending Kent State.

She wrote how she is retired from being a childhood education teacher and noted she and her husband live in Fort Pierce, Fla., by the ocean which she always loved.

Lynn told Maranto she was pleased to hear he survived the war and raised a family in California, just like she and her husband had. She stated she read the article about his wanting to find her in the Herald-Star, as it answered many of the questions she had back then after losing touch.

“Her letter was rather brief, but there will be more to come,” Maranto stated. “I am hopeful we can make arrangements to finally meet.”

He thanked the Herald-Star for making this reconnection possible.

Who knows: Perhaps the time will come when the two will finally be able to meet, face-to-face.

But until then, Maranto will continue to look forward to receiving another letter … one day.