Several hundred people attended a Memorial Day ceremony paying tribute to Marine Corps Maj. William H. Seward, a Georgia Tech alumnus who died in action in Vietnam almost 40 years ago.

A granite stone erected by the Atlanta Vietnam Veterans Business Association to honor Seward, Cls 59, marked the 20th year an Atlanta-area Vietnam casualty has been remembered.

Retired Marine Col. Jerry Gartman, described by his peers as a flamer — military parlance meaning the toughest of the tough — tried to blink the tears away as memories of March 6, 1968, came flooding back.

"We were aboard a CH-46-alpha helicopter hoisting down a special forces recon team into thick jungle near the Laotian border when we were shot down by enemy gunfire," Gartman told the crowd. "We went down and tumbled through some trees into a gully."

Seward, the great-great-grandson of William Seward, Abraham Lincoln's secretary of state during the Civil War, was initially listed as missing in action, and later "killed in action, body not recovered."

In 1994, a joint U.S.-Vietnamese recovery operation located the remains of Seward and a crew member, but because not all of the remains could be specifically identified, a joint burial was held at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Later, remains that matched Seward's DNA were returned to Georgia for burial.

Seward was born in Atlanta in 1937 and attended Georgia Tech majoring in aeronautical engineering from 1955 to 1957. He joined the Navy and was commissioned a Marine aviator in 1959. He served two combat tours in Vietnam and was awarded the Purple Heart, 16 Air Medals, the Vietnam Service Medal and the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with palm and numerous citations and commendations.

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