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Memorial Day 2024 - Remembering My Friends

If not killed-in-action, they are still dying from the effects of their service in Vietnam.

If not killed-in-action, they are still dying from the effects of their service in Vietnam.

Memorial Day for most Americans is a generalized event during which veterans who have died are recognized by the public at large. This year, I want to bring home the fact that the millions who served in Vietnam, died in combat, or lived out their lives at home, are individuals, friends, and fellow vets. They have names and faces. They have wives and children. I would like you to meet some of those I knew who served in Vietnam and lost their lives there or later died, many of causes related to their service.

Gerry Winch

 

Gerry Winch was a college friend who was killed-in-action in Vietnam in 1968. He and I were members of the Reserve Officer Training Corps at John Carroll University. We were also members of the military fraternity, the Pershing Rifles. He graduated a year before I did, and died in Vietnam in March, 1968 just six months before my arrival there in October, 1968. He was a Purple Heart recipient. He was 27 years old when he died. His brother, Jack, a close college friend and also a member of the Pershing Rifles, survived his tour in Vietnam but was badly wounded. 

 

Michael Sudborough

 

Michael Sudborough was a classmate of mine at the Infantry Officers Basic Course and Airborne (Parachutist) Course at Ft. Benning (now Ft. Moore) in 1965. One of the last times I saw him was at his home on Thanksgiving Day 1965 where I joined him and his wife for the traditional celebration. He was killed-in-action in Vietnam in March of 1967. He was a Purple Heart recipient. Many of his friends had tried to dissuade him, but he volunteered for a combat assignment, even though he could have served his one tour of duty in Korea and returned to his wife in Oregon. A fellow vet and I visited his grave in a Veterans Administration Cemetery near San Francisco a few years ago. Michael died at age 25. 

Charlie Hymers

 

Charlie Hymers was a college classmate and a member of the Reserve Officers Training Corps at John Carroll University. We were in the same class, graduating and receiving our commissions as second lieutenants in 1965. I never saw him again, as he was killed-in-action while piloting a helicopter in Vietnam in February, 1967. He was a Purple Heart recipient. Charlie always had a big grin on his face when I would turn around to see him seated in the back of our military science classroom. He died at the age of 24.

Hal Hilton

 

Hal Hilton was a classmate of mine at the Infantry Officers Basic Course and Airborne (Parachutist) Course at Ft. Benning in 1965. His future wife, Jeannie, coincidentally lived on the same floor in an apartment building in Berlin where I was assigned in 1967/1968. He and his wife remained close friends of mine until his death in 2021; Jeannie had died a few years before. Hal survived a serious leg wound during his tour in Vietnam which ended his plans for a career in the military. Hal was a Purple Heart recipient. He suffered from post traumatic stress and died too soon from cancer as a result of his exposure to Agent Orange. He was 80 years old. 

 

Chuck Krajniak

 

Chuck Krajniak was a college classmate and close friend who survived his tour of duty with the Infantry in Vietnam. He and I were members of the Reserve Officer Training Corps at John Carroll University. We were also members of the military fraternity, the Pershing Rifles. He suffered from post traumatic stress and died much too early from cancer as a result of his exposure to Agent Orange. He was 66. 

 

Tom Etowski

 

Tom Etowski was a college friend. He and I were members of the Reserve Officer Training Corps at John Carroll University. We were also members of the military fraternity, the Pershing Rifles. There was never a dull moment with Tom around. He graduated from college a year before I did and we remained in touch periodically for the next 56 years. Tom survived his tour of duty in Vietnam in spite of his several wounds. He was a Purple Heart recipient. He died of heart failure at the age of 80. 

 

 

Lew Puller

 

Lew Puller was my close friend during the last 10 years of his life. A U.S. Marine officer, he was very badly wounded in Vietnam and later wrote a book about his experience, "Fortunate Son," for which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Lew suffered continually throughout his life from residual pain from his war wounds and post traumatic stress with attendant addiction to pain killers. He took his own life in 1994.  He was 48 years old. 

 

Fred Caristo

 

Fred Caristo and I met as fellow students in 1970 at the Military Intelligence Officers Advanced Course at Ft. Holabird, Maryland. Fred was a legend in U.S. Special Forces, especially his multiple tours of duty in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Fred was a Purple Heart recipient. He eventually transferred to Military Intelligence as a follow-on to his time with Special Forces. We kept in touch during the 1970s as our military careers went in separate directions with an occasional crossing, as is part and parcel of life in the military. After both of us were out of the military, I ran across his name in an intelligence debriefing report about U.S. POW/MIAs from Vietnam. The source was a Vietnamese refugee who had once worked with Fred in special operations in Vietnam. Fred agreed to come to our office in the Pentagon to be debriefed on the topic and enlarge on the report. We were able to arrange a reunion between Fred an his Vietnamese commando colleague. Eventually, based in part on this reunion, another Army intelligence colleague wrote a book on the topic of commando operations in Vietnam. Fred died at age 72 in 2012.  

 

Jack McGuinness

Jack McGuinness and I were fellow students in 1970 at the Military Intelligence Officers Advanced Course at Ft. Holabird, Maryland. Jack had multiple tours in Vietnam and Laos during the war in Southeast Asia in the 1960s. Like Fred Caristo, he transferred to Military Intelligence. We stayed in touch on and off. A chance encounter with him in 1995 in a hallway in one of the Crystal City, Virginia, office buildings allowed us to reconnect. I was also able to reunite him and a former Laotian general with whom he worked in the 1960s. Such is military life with its unexpected reunions. Jack was a Purple Heart recipient and died in 2016 at the age of 77.  

 

John Marcy 

John Marcy was a college friend. He and I were members of the Reserve Officer Training Corps at John Carroll University. We were also members of the military fraternity, the Pershing Rifles. He graduated one year before I did. We found each other from time to time during our Army service, including a chance encounter with him and his wife, Paula, in the Army Commissary in Bangkok, Thailand, where both of us were stationed in 1975. John was a Purple Heart recipient. I last saw John and Paula pre-COVID at a Pershing Rifles reunion in Cleveland, Ohio. John died at age 84. 

 

Maybe you have a friend or relative who served in the military but who has now passed away. Let us know in the comments below so we can add faces and personal history to the Memorial Day remembrances. 

Comments by Readers

M. Lynda Hanscome

May 25, 2024

Thank you so very much for sharing these precious details about your friends.  May they all rest in peace.

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Tom Dohman

May 25, 2024

Thanks, Dick, for providing your personal memories of comrades in arms who have passed on - many before “their time”.  They served their country well & selflessly, giving lie to the perverse view by some that citizens who volunteered or were drafted for military service are or were “losers & suckers” (a despicable view of those who served).

My dad was a proud Navy man who served his country during WWII, which then led to a 25-year career in law enforcement.  He never brought the job home to his 6 children (we knew he was a policeman and where he worked but he spared us the details of the job).  He instilled a sense of honesty, public service & responsibility as well as a strong work ethic in all his children.  He died in 1972 and thus missed out on seeing that his kids cared deeply for & helped mom in myriad ways (for 25 years after his passing), carved out meaningful lives for themselves and always stayed on the “right side of the law”.

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Jamie K. Donaldson

May 25, 2024

Yes, thank you, Dick, for bringing humanity and dignity back to a “holiday” whose origin we too-often forget. May I say that we’re lucky you are still with us to tell the stories of men and women who died serving in Vietnam and afterwards?  My father, Lt. Rolland Dean Donaldson, was a Navy man in both WWII and the Korean Conflict and came home having lost more than 75% of his hearing.  Like many of his generation, he didn’t speak about his time in the military, but I got the impression he didn’t enjoy it.

 

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Carol Follett

May 26, 2024

“What a piece of work is a man, How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and moving how express and admirable, In action how like an Angel, In apprehension how like a god, The beauty of the world, The paragon of animals.”

Shakespeare’s Hamlet Act II, Scene 2

When I read your memorial to your comrades, Dick, I cannot help but think how precious life is, and how seemingly like miracles, each of us is. We come into existence starting as a little blob of cells that divide and specialize millions of times to form an inexpressibly beautiful little creature capable of amazing feats of movement and thought. And the awesomeness of our being does not cease; we daily transform and grow. What do we do with this gift of being? And what do we choose to do with this precious gift of life? I will close with another quote that comes to mind more often than I would like:

“O, what men dare do! What men may do! What men daily do, not knowing what they do!”

Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Act IV, scene I

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Tip Johnson

May 27, 2024

I’m remembering my dad. He was nw Montana golden gloves, Montana state featherweight champ for four, US Navy flyweight champ for three. Never knocked down, never lost a fight. He joined th CBs and was assigned to Saipan to build barracks, a runway, and to install a radar atop a mountain in advance of the Marines’ arrival.  I pestered him for details for years and he finally offered, “Well, we had to kill a lot of people”.  

Like Joe said today, “Freedom is not a given..”

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Gene Marx

May 28, 2024

Thanks for a great remembrance piece, Dick. This holiday is a tough one for a lot of us.

My childhood rival and best friend, Cpt. Richard Halpin, was missing in action for almost 15 years before what was left of him was found. I’ve thought of him for over 50 years, living and dreaming enough for both of us.

Dick was killed instantaneously by a surface-to-air missile on March 29, 1972, near Tchepone, Laos. Incredibly, a missile almost struck my aircraft over the Gulf of Tonkin the same month. (I ran into one of Dick’s wingmen years later and learned that Dick had volunteered to fly this sortie for a fatigued roommate.) His combat tour was over. His bags - as it turned out, his personal effects - were packed for home. He was listed as missing in action until teeth fragments of his were found in 1986. A US/Laotian team found thousands of bone fragments at the crash site that year. In 2010, Dick’s ‘s were interred at Arlington National Cemetery, with those of 12 other AC-130 crewmembers.

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Dick Conoboy

May 30, 2024

Thanks to all who took the time to comment with their personal reflections and recognition of the service of those they knew. 

Commenting will be left open until July 4th in the event others wish to recognize a soldier they knew.

Dick

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