Family, friends recall veterans

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'Just remember them as they were'

Wednesday, November 11, 1998

BY LEW MOORES
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Katherine Dieckmann of Fairmount displays a photo of her son and the telegram she received about his death in Vietnam. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

First there is the stone - black granite, polished and gleaming, catching the reflection of whoever stands before it.

Then the names - more than 58,000 of them, etched into the stone, line after line, panel after panel.

They are the names of American soldiers killed in Southeast Asia from 1959 to 1975. The wings of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial fan out, east and west, in a gentle V, with the engraved names arranged chronologically.

Visitors to Washington, D.C., come to this monument at all hours, run their fingers over the names, place sheets of white paper over them and with a pencil or crayon summon the names onto paper by rubbing.

A National Park Service ranger climbs a ladder at the 18th panel on the west side of the memorial. He needs the ladder to reach the name on the third line from the top. The ranger runs a heavy pencil over the name - letter by letter, the name Robert W. McCabe Jr. emerges.

At the seventh panel on the east side, about chest-high, 80th line down, the process is repeated - John E. Dieckmann.

The soldiers, one 19 years old, the other 27, are just two of the 58,000 names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, just two of the soldiers whose memories are recalled on days like today, Veterans Day, the day the memorial was dedicated in 1982.

Theirs are among more than 200 names from the Cincinnati area engraved on the Wall. It has become a touchstone for all that war came to symbolize, from personal loss and sacrifice to the notion of promise lost.

An Army officer arrived at the door of Katherine Dieckmann's home more than 30 years ago. It was about her son, he told her. He was killed, he told her. Her son, Capt. John E. Dieckmann, was killed May 18, 1966.

A rubbing of John Dieckmann's name from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

Mrs. Dieckmann summoned her two other sons home; one from work, the other from school. Capt. Dieckmann left a wife, a 3-year-old daughter and a son yet unborn.

"His wife wasn't even 21 yet," Mrs. Dieckmann said. "It was no picnic. My boy was an All-American boy."

She is 87 years old now and lives in an airy, light-filled apartment in South Fairmount, surrounded by family pictures. One photo is of her son in Vietnam; he is shirtless and in fatigues. He is 27 years old. Had he lived, he'd turn 60 in March.

Capt. Dieckmann volunteered for duty in Vietnam and was sent in December 1965, serving as an adviser to a South Vietnamese army battalion. During an attack by Viet Cong troops on May 18, 1966, Capt. Dieckmann, "with complete disregard for his own personal safety, exposed himself to intense fire to personally inspire and deploy the friendly forces," reads the Army citation.

He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for "extraordinary heroism."

"He was kind of gung-ho," said Jim Large, who grew up with Capt. Dieckmann and now lives in Okeechobee, Fla. "He loved a challenge."

About 3 million Americans served in Vietnam during a war that took more than 58,000 American lives and wounded another 153,000. Ground troops arrived in 1965, and by mid-1965 about 27,000 troops were in Vietnam. By the end of the year, almost 200,000 had been sent.

That more than doubled to 536,000 troops by May 1968, according to Neil Sheehan in his book A Bright Shining Lie, and the number peaked at 543,000 by April 1969.

Brothers Dan and Bill McCabe with the 1968 senior class portrait of their brother Robert, who was 19 when he was killed in Vietnam (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

More than 6,000 died in 1966, the year Capt. Dieckmann was killed, and more than 14,000 were killed in 1968, the year that saw the most American battle deaths. Another 11,500 died in 1969, the year Bob McCabe was killed.

According to records kept by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, 224 soldiers from Cincinnati and Hamilton County lost their lives. Capt. Robert D. Bennett, an airman shot down by enemy fire, was the first, killed Nov. 5, 1962.

As best can be determined, the last Cincinnati casualty occurred Sept. 18, 1971, when Army Spc. Gerald Van Winkle, 20, was killed.

In the years between, other soldiers would die: Zachary P. New, 18, an Army private (killed Aug. 8, 1968); Donald Palmore, 18, a Marine private (killed May 29, 1968); Dennis Hodge, 19, an Army specialist (killed Sept. 13, 1967); Jerry W. Hood, 21, a Marine private (killed two days after his birthday, April 30, 1967); Leonard Vogt Jr., 40, a Navy commander and the oldest Cincinnatian to die in Vietnam (Sept. 18, 1965); and Allen Boehm, 19, an Army specialist (killed April 24, 1971).

Bob McCabe had been in Vietnam 13 weeks when he wrote his last letter to friend Gordon Cain.

Bob wrote he was looking forward to a little R&R that was due him and told Mr. Cain to thank his mother, Agnes Cain, for sending along Kool-Aid and cookies. "She's number one," he wrote.

But he also did not mince words.

"I'm starting to hate this place," he wrote.

Bob McCabe was one of eight children, a gritty wrestler and football player at Aiken High School who graduated in 1968, had no plans for college and joined the Marine Corps.

He was well-liked, had a brown belt in judo, drove a 1956 Ford station wagon painted a garish green and had a smile that, according to friend Jackie Schneider, "would melt your heart."

But he was not unlike a lot of teens of the late '60s. "Bob was just a young kid with a wild hair or two on occasion," Mr. Cain, of Clifton, recalled.

"I was a little younger and I always looked up to him going through high school," recalled another friend, Tom Ryan, 48, who lives in St. Bernard. "I drank my first quart of beer with him."

Bill and Dan McCabe were Bob's younger brothers, 16 and 15 when he was killed. Each has three children who never knew their uncle; one is now 18 and had talked about joining the Marines. "It really kind of scared me to death," said Bill McCabe, of White Oak.

The two brothers spent part of one morning looking over photographs of Bob in Vietnam. Their brother's head had been shorn of its curly locks, and he had added some bulk and muscle to what had been a wiry, 140-pound frame.

In everyone's favorite snapshot, he poses in fatigues with a Vietnamese child in his arms.

"He was very proud to be in the Marine Corps," said Bill. "He was proud of what he was doing. On the one hand you've got a dead brother, and on the other you saw what was going on. What's the point of the whole thing? Well, he's the one who gave his life. We were very proud of what he did."

His brother was fascinated by Civil War strategy and loved the board game Risk, said Bill Dieckmann. Bill's daughter, Deanna, is 15 years old and has asked often about an uncle she never knew. He gave her a letter that John had written, in which he counseled his younger brother, "Go to college, go to college . . .."

"I was hoping to reinforce and plant the seed with her," said Bill Dieckmann.

"He was a young man who knew what he wanted to do and did it," said Capt. Dieckmann's mother.

Mr. Large last saw his friend at the airport on Dec. 2, 1965. Just months later he had to identify his body. "His wife couldn't bring herself to do that," said Mr. Large.

"He was a leader," he continued. "I don't know if you're destined for that kind of stuff. We went through the Boy Scouts together, graduated from Hughes High School in 1955. We both joined the National Guard at an early age; I'd guess 17.

"We were typical young kids in that era growing up. Nothing outlandish. Just typical boys growing up in a middle-class neighborhood." He thinks about his friend often.

"My best friend," said Mr. Large. "It was a brother I lost. . . . He was the best man at my wedding."

Bob McCabe was a scrapper, Dick Ferin, his wrestling and football coach at Aiken, recalled.

"I wasn't surprised that he joined the Marines," said Mr. Ferin, now retired and living in Greenhills. "He was a patriotic kid. I think he probably wanted to get into combat. He was tough, a really tough kid. He came to see me and told me he was leaving. I asked, 'For Vietnam?' And he said 'Yup.' "

Ms. Schneider has nothing but fond memories of a teen-ager who today would be 48. She remembers him as mischievous and unassuming, a kid with a gentle nature.

Is it hard to imagine any of them as being 30 years older? Is it hard to imagine Bob McCabe as a 48-year-old?

"Yes it is," said Ms. Schneider. "It's difficult. Because you just remember them as they were."

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