13 Purple Hearts Meet, Remember

By LIBBY CUDMORE • The Freeman’s Journal

Edition of Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014

When Doug Walker returned home from Vietnam in 1967, he was told to wear his civilian clothes. “We were not very welcome,” he said.

But on Sunday, Sept. 28, Walker sat down in the Doubleday Café with 15 veterans of the 2nd Platoon, Mike Company, 3/9 Marines, 13 of them Purple Heart recipients, in a gathering organized by Warren Ryther of Garrattsville.
“They loved our little town,” Walker said. “It’s safe and easy to get around.”

Every two years, these wounded warriors get together for a reunion, coming from as far away as California and Utah to meet at various locations throughout the country. “You get close in these kinds of situations,” he said.

This year, Ryther invited them to his farm for the reunion weekend. They toured the Baseball Hall of Fame and downtown Cooperstown, and had afternoon cookouts back in Garrattsville. “We get everybody here, baseball teams, bowling leagues, but having a group of Purple Heart veterans really sets them apart.”

For 35 years, Ryther hadn’t heard from anyone else who served with him in Vietnam. “A lot of us didn’t want to recall those days,” he said. “But as we age and with the advent of the Internet, we get sentimental.”

The group started meeting bi-annually eight years ago, and the last reunion was in Minnesota. “We had a couple new members this year, so we spent a lot of time reminiscing and learning their stories.”

Walker, Cooperstown VFW commander, and fellow village native Paul Elkin both served in northern Vietnam in 1967, around the same time as many of Ryther’s guests. “I was forward observer on the front lines, calling in fire from the ships,” Walker said. “These guys were all infantry, 2nd Platoon, 1967-68. They saw a lot of hand-to-hand combat, lost a lot of their company in the Tet Offensive. They were all caught up in that.”

“Most of us were wounded in May 1968,” said Ryther. “We saw an awful lot of action, and we all had friends who didn’t come home.”

Elkin and Walker enlisted together in 1963, along with 25 other Cooperstown natives. John Winslow, a fellow Marine, and Bobby Atwell, who enlisted in the Army, were both killed in action.

Though not Purple Heart recipients themselves, Walker, a retired B&B owner, and Elkin, assistant district attorney, were invited to join the visiting Marines for a cookout and then breakfast at Doubleday Café. “The Doubleday provided the food free of charge,” he said. “They wanted to thank these men for their service.”

Over coffee and eggs, veterans swapped stories of their time in Vietnam. Many of them had gone through boot camp at Parris Island in South Carolina, as Walker had. “They talked about a machine gunner they all called John Wayne,” he said. “We told them what we did while we were there – every Marine always has a story to share.”