The telegram came by taxi. It was Dec. 23, 1965.

Lucille Wise thought the cab driver ringing the doorbell brought Christmas wishes.

"I said Merry Christmas," she said. "He wasn't a friendly fellow at all. After I signed for it and handed it to him, that's when he didn't let go. He asked if there was someone here with me."

The telegram was from the government. Her sister-in-law, who was visiting, opened the envelope.

"All I could see was 'killed in action,'" she said.

Major James C. Wise Jr., a U.S. Air Force pilot, had been shot down while leading two South Vietnamese pilots on an armed reconnaissance mission northwest of Saigon.

He'd been in Vietnam a month. He was 35.

A military official advised the 34-year-old widow to immediately get an unlisted phone number so war protesters wouldn't call her or her three daughters, ages 7, 8 and 10.

"I thought 'Isn't this pitiful?'" she said. "That was their dad, my husband, and I thought, 'That just doesn't seem right."

A tribute Thursday at Marietta's East Cobb Park will help restore what was lost. For the 22nd year, the Atlanta Vietnam Veterans Business Association will dedicate a memorial to one of the 418 Atlanta citizens killed in Vietnam.

The ceremony will include flyovers, color guards, bands and a speech by Medal of Honor recipient Col. George Everett "Bud" Day.

"It's the closure I wish I'd had 42 years ago," said Lucille Wise Wilcox, who remarried 11 years after her first husband died. She was widowed again 20 years ago and now lives in Marietta.

"We started this organization to promote patriotism and to promote values that we felt were embodied by people who serve in uniform," said Cary S. King, president of AVVBA.

Oliver Halle, who served on a Navy swiftboat in Vietnam, nominated Wise.

He met Wise Wilcox through her volunteer job at the East Cobb YMCA, where she is known as "the hugger." "I think everybody should be hugged 10 times a day — at least," she said.

She'll give out plenty of hugs at the ceremony, where King said 750 to 1,000 people are expected.

"Having family involvement and community connections is extremely important to us," he said. "Obviously, we're doing this as much for the family as it is for us."

Jim Wise grew up in Atlanta near what later became the Midtown MARTA station and went to Boys' High.

"You could always count on Jim," said William E. Dean, his best friend, "If he said he was going to be able to borrow his aunt's car for us to double date, he always came through."

Wise was a Sigma Chi at Georgia Tech, transferring to Auburn and then Alabama, where he began dating Lucille. They soon were pinned.

He studied civil engineering and planned to be an architect like his father, but his love of flying altered his course.

A natural pilot, Wise soloed after only four or five hours, Dean said.

He joined the Air National Guard because he thought he'd get some rides on observation planes.

"They sent him to the motor pool," Dean said. "That didn't work out."

Wise became a jet fighter pilot for the U.S. Air Force at bases including France, Las Vegas and Newport, R.I., where he attended the Naval War College.

An avid photographer, he bought a Leica, and went to Leica school in Germany.

"I must have really loved him because I made room in our trailer for a darkroom," Wise Wilcox said. "It took over the whole dining room."

Cathy, the eldest daughter, was the son he never had. She often went fishing with her dad. Vicki, in the middle, was the one always acting up. Jamie, the youngest, remembers all three girls doing the bunny hop at the officers' club.

They also went sailing.

"That scared me to death; he liked to get the boat right up on the edge," said Jamie Wise Allen, 49, of Marietta.

For Christmas 1964, Wise dressed up as Santa Claus to visit his daughters' school.

"As the story goes," Allen said, "I went to my teacher and I said, 'I think that's my dad. I would know that nose anywhere.' "

A few months later, the family moved to Largo, Fla., to be near Lucille's folks in case Wise went to Vietnam.

He had missed serving in Korea and didn't want to miss Vietnam, too. Wise knew the Air Force was grooming him, Dean said.

"I think Jimmy had the feeling that Vietnam was going to be a quick police action type of thing, and it would be appropriate for him in later years to have served in Vietnam just to enhance his military career," Dean said.

"He was waiting and waiting," Wise Wilcox said, "and, finally, he just thought, 'I'll pay my own way."

He bought a ticket to Los Angeles, where he could hop an Air Force plane.

"The one thing that I will never forget is standing at that outdoor airport and he had the light on in the plane and you could just see his face," said Vicki Wise Corum, 51, who lives in Roswell.

"We had no point of reference ...we had not seen people go and not come back," said Cathy Wise Minteer, 52, of Oldsmar, Fla., She later figured out that because of the time difference, her father had actually died on Dec. 22, her 10th birthday.

"I was told at one time that he was not supposed to be flying missions," Minteer said. "I know he was supposed to be teaching. That's always been a question."

Wise went to Vietnam as an Air Force captain, but found out before he died that he'd been promoted to major.

He was an advisor with Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky's personal squadron. Ky, who later became prime minister, sent the family a plaque and letter of condolence.

The Vietnamese also sent an ornate wreath made of scrap metal and white and black beads. They intended it to be dropped in the Gulf of Mexico with Wise's ashes, but it arrived too late.

It's now on a wall at Minteer's house, too fragile to move.

When they returned to school after their father's death, the daughters recall getting the silent treatment.

"No one wanted to talk to us, " Corum said, "because they didn't know what to say."

Today, they'll be among people who understand.

Wise Wilcox asked that her daughters join her to unveil the memorial. They still call themselves "The Wise Girls," though none of them use that last name.

"I just think he's deserved it for so long," Corum said. "It's the celebration of his life that we never had."