By JAY CONLEY
THE ROANOKE TIMES

Archives Reprint

   Army veterans from the 29th Division Association have created a fund to help pay the legal bills of Richard Burrow, the former president of the National D-Day Memorial Foundation who was indicted last month on federal fraud charges.

    Hugh Wills, the association's secretary, mailed out 500 letters Tuesday to association members, asking them to help with Burrow's legal bills.

    Burrow, 55, of Roanoke, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of bank fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud and loan application fraud. The charges pertained to the millions of dollars he acquired in taxpayer-funded state grants and from a bank loan to complete the cash-strapped $25 million memorial in Bedford.

    None of the charges allege that Burrow used the money for personal gain, but prosecutors say his reputation as a fund-raiser was bolstered by the grants and the loan.

    Nineteen members of the 29th Division from Bedford and Bedford County died in the first wave of the June 6, 1944, Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France. Twenty division soldiers from the Roanoke area died in the third wave.

    "He did what he did at the last moment to get the D-Day memorial up and running," Wills wrote of Burrow in the letter.

    Reached at his Roanoke home Wednesday, Wills said Burrow's only misstep was relying too heavily on expected donations to pay off the memorial's bills and bank loans.

    "He was under pressure to get the thing done," Wills said. "The pledges didn't come in, and he was counting on them to come in."

    Bob Slaughter, a D-Day veteran from the 29th who spearheaded the creation of the memorial and formerly was chairman of the foundation's board, has said he believes Burrow broke no laws, but conceded he had little knowledge of Burrow's banking practices.

    Slaughter said Wednesday that he supports the creation of the division's Richard Burrow Legal Defense Fund because "I think Richard's getting shafted."

    Slaughter said he expects most of the 29th Division Association's members to support Burrow.

    "They're going to rally behind him," he said.

    Norman Elmore of Roanoke, a retired colonel from the 29th who was one of the foundation's first board members, said he would gladly support a fund-raising effort to help Burrow and questioned the merits of the charges against him.

    "He didn't do this for his own benefit. He was merely trying to get the job done," Elmore said.

    Burrow's trial is scheduled for Sept. 3 in Lynchburg.

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