RICHARD EUGENE ENGLE
RICHARD E ENGLE
36E/70
REMEMBRANCES
The Batavia Daily News article
42 years after soldier's death, still a deep sadness for Engle family
By Tom Rivers
The Batavia Daily News
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Rick Engle was 19 when he was killed in Vietnam on Feb. 2, 1968.
He was the last Albion soldier killed in combat, almost 42 years before (Jason) Johnston was killed the day after Christmas.
Engle's death left his parents, Lloyd and Betty Engle, with a "deep sadness" that never went away, Ireland said.
"My father never fully recovered from that loss," (Richard's sister, Lisa) Ireland said. "My father was an amazing man but my mother told me she wished I could have known my father before that loss. He became quieter and more removed...."
He (Richard) is almost revered in the family and held up as a hero.
Richard's sister Brenda)McQuillan is often reminded that she bears a striking resemblance to Rick. Her 8-year-old son, Connor, seems like a duplicate of her older brother.
Now that they're married and raising their own children, the sisters said they can't imagine such an unbearable loss for their parents.
Engle's death affected many more in the community.
Almost 42 years after his cousin was killed, Bob Engle still thinks about his best friend "constantly."
Rick would be the same age, 61, as Bob, who grew up a half-mile from Rick in Barre.
Bob lived on Culver Road while Rick was on Old Route 98. The two were like brothers, "best friends," Bob said Tuesday morning over breakfast at the Apollo Restaurant...
About Engle, "I never stop thinking about him," Bob said. The two traveled together to enlist in the military.
Bob was denied because of a hernia and extra bone in his knee. He wanted to serve next to his cousin.
Bob has worked the past 25 years at Saint Gobain Technical Fabrics. He enjoys playing a big brother role to Ireland and McQuillan. The sisters are two of Engle's five siblings. The others live out of state.
Bob and Rick's sisters joked with each other Tuesday over breakfast. The sisters shared photographs of their brother they had copied. There was one of Bob ad Rick together when they were young boys. Bob hadn't seen the photo in many, many years.
"As I get older, I get more sentimental about him," Bob said, holding the childhood picture. "I feel it right now."
Never Forgotten
"If you are able, save for them a place inside of you....and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.....Be not ashamed to say you loved them....
Take what they have left and what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own....And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind...."
Quote from a letter home by Maj. Michael Davis O'Donnell
KIA 24 March 1970. Distinguished Flying Cross: Shot down and Killed while attempting to rescue 8 fellow soldiers surrounded by attacking enemy forces.
We Nam Brothers pause to give a backward glance, and post this remembrance to you, one of the gentle heroes lost to the War in Vietnam:
Slip off that pack. Set it down by the crooked trail. Drop your steel pot alongside. Shed those magazine-ladened bandoliers away from your sweat-soaked shirt. Lay that silent weapon down and step out of the heat. Feel the soothing cool breeze right down to your soul ... and rest forever in the shade of our love, brother.
From your Nam-Band-Of-Brothers