By ALICE ANN LOVE

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Just tall enough to be at eye level with the feet of a memorial statue at the Vietnam Wall, a little boy asked why American soldiers in Vietnam wore dog tags on their boots.

Vietnam vet Robert Maras didn't flinch: ``If they ... got a leg blown off, you could identify them.''

Of the 58,000 Americans killed in Vietnam, an estimated one-third were fathers. They left young children who have become parents themselves.

Saturday, members of the national survivors support group Sons and Daughters in Touch brought to Washington dozens of grandchildren of men who died in Vietnam for a special Father's Day remembrance at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Maras, president of the New Jersey state council of the Vietnam Veterans of America, helped parents answer their children's questions.

A misty rain dripped from lush summer foliage overhead as he spoke of flak jackets, jungle boots, machine guns and the untimely, violent deaths of young men who should have lived to be these children's grandfathers.

``You try to explain the best you can that he was doing what his country wanted him to do and fighting for our freedom and that he was a really special man for that,'' said Gary Sizemore, 42, of Largo, Fla. Sizemore came to The Wall with his two brothers to teach their six kids, ages 4 to 10, about grandpa.

William D. Sizemore was an American adviser to the South Vietnamese army and had been in country just 18 days when he was killed in an ambush in June of 1967. Each of his grandchildren made a pencil rubbing of his name etched in The Wall and got a red-, yellow-, and green-striped sticker like the campaign ribbon he would have worn had he survived.

``It was scary there,'' said Kirstie Rheinheimer, 9, of what it was like for her grandfather to fight in the war.

``It was so hot they usually didn't wear shirts, just vests with humongous pockets,'' added her twin sister, Briana.

The two girls came all the way from Bakersfield, Calif., with their parents to learn more about their grandpa, Cpl. Richard L. Sanders, a medic with the Army's 9th Infantry Division.

Kirstie said he died ``trying to help a wounded soldier.''

Sons and Daughters in Touch works to bring together families of the dead and surviving veterans who may be able to share news of the last days of lost fathers and grandfathers or just lend a sympathetic ear.

Kelly Rihn, 31, of Glenshaw, Pa., was able to get in touch with her father's sergeant through the group. She learned that her dad, Joel D. Coleman of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division, was shot by a sniper in 1966 - when he was 21 and she was 8 months old.

Although she can't remember what he was like, Rihn has made sure his granddaughter Megan, 5, ``knows her grandpop's name is on the wall. If she even sees it on TV, she calls me.''

``We're literally carrying the torch, and it's our children who will take over,'' said Jeanette Chevrony, 30, of Costa Mesa, Calif., whose 3-year-old son Eddie is named after his grandfather. (Background Photo)

Sgt. Eddie E. Chevrony was killed in May 1968, on his sixth trip to get wounded comrades out of a landing zone near Ky Son that had been overrun by the enemy.

In addition to bringing their children to visit, 250 Sons and Daughters members from about 40 states gathered at dawn Saturday to help National Park Service rangers wash the memorial. They planned to place roses there Sunday, after a Father's Day remembrance ceremony presided over by Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, who served two tours of duty in Vietnam and now is President Clinton's chief adviser on illegal drugs.

AP-NY-06-15-97 0021EDT