For some reason I have been thinking of Lucky Staggs who won the Silver Star up at Con Thien. I don't know whether it was bad luck, PTSD, or something else, but Lucky wound up in Jackson Michigan Prison doing hard time. While he was there, he was killed during a riot as he was trying to save one of the guards. In my eyes, he was a hero to the end.
I want us to remember our brothers who came home to troubled times and who weren't as fortunate as those of us who were able to pull our lives together after Nam.
I knew 'Lucky' in Echo Company, he and Mike Kerr, who I came 'in-country' with in December of 1967, went to the S-2 Scouts in mid-to late February of 1968 when we were still on Hill 861-A @ Khe Sanh. I never saw 'Lucky' again. I heard the story later, many years later, @ a Khe Sanh Veterans reunion when I spoke with Jim Kaylor and learned that 'Lucky' went 'joyriding' with friends from his home in Northern Indiana. They asked 'Lucky' to stop @ a convenience story in Michigan so they could get some cigarettes; they robbed the store and killed the clerk. 'Lucky' was guilty as an accessory and went to prison for life--Michigan has no death penalty--the Michigan State Penitentiary @ Jackson, which was then and may still be the world's largest walled prison. That stunned me because when I first got out in 1971 I worked @ the federal prison in Milan, Michigan and had taken a tour of Jackson--so close yet so far.
A year or so after learning the story for Jim I had the opportunity to speak on the phone with the guard whose life 'Lucky' had saved. That guard had served with 2/26 from sometime in the late 1968 - early - 1970 time frame. Lucky was murdered ten (10) or so years after the time he saved the guard. Why? Because it was pure revenge for 'Lucky' breaking a cardinal prison rule--you NEVER side with a guard against the inmates. The guard was targeted for murder because he was doing his job and stopping the crime that goes on in prison.
The bottom line is that as far as I'm concerned no matter what someone does to go to prison, if he/she conducts himself with honor in difficult situations while there such as 'Lucky' did, then he/she is still a United States Marine. Prisons are a brutal place, but 'Lucky' didn't let that stop him. He is still a United States Marine. Rest in peace Marine. God Bless and Semper Fidelis!!!
Ron I had no idea Lucky Staggs had been incarcerated or had died. How sad, but as you say let's remember the man we knew.
I still have his "business card".