history pic 31

'63 L'Anse grads enlist together

Photo sparks Army memories

   It was their senior year. L’Anse High School, 1963.
   What’s a soon-to-be graduate going to do?
   “I don’t remember who said they were going in the Army, but then somebody else said, ‘Don’t be chicken! Let’s join the Army!’ Pretty soon there was a bunch of us going,” said Keith Lambert of L’Anse.
   Doug Jukkala sparked the memories, contributing the photo above, dated 3 Sep 63. It was taken at the L’Anse depot. Jukkala, Roger Johnson, Pat LeClaire, Jack Sands, Joe Gabe, Keith Lambert, Wayne Abba and Larry Stelmaszek hooked up with an Army recruiter in Marquette. They soon found themselves boarding a train for Milwaukee and their first days of Army life. The drum and bugle corps provided a hometown send-off.
   “We told the recruiter that we were UP boys and it’s cold up here so we wanted to go where it’s warm. They sent us to Ft. Jackson, North Carolina, in September and it was blistering hot. It about killed us all!” Lambert recalled. “It was supposed to be some sort of buddy deal but after Basic they split us up and sent us all over.”
   As memory serves, Pat “Snuffy” LeClaire wound up with the Army in Germany. He lives in Ft. Worth, TX, today.
   Jukkala splits his time between L’Anse and Florida. He served as a squad leader in Korea as a member of the 2nd Infantry Division. He was stationed just south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in Korea for a 13-month tour. He later was with the 101st Airborne at Ft. Campbell, KY.
   Wayne Abba was the only one of the group to sign up for four years instead of three. He served with the Army Security Agency. He may have stayed in longer than that. He is believed to be in Virginia today operating his own business after a long career with the government.
   Jack Sands went to Korea with the Army. He lives in Union City, CA. Roger Johnson was with the Army in Berlin, Germany. He lives in the Marquette area today.
   Joe Gabe lives in Arvon Township on Huron Bay. He got into communications in the Army serving in Worms, Germany, on the Rhine River. Before that he spent a

couple years at Ft. Hood, TX.
   Larry Stelmaszek apparently stayed in the States during his Army years. He had spent his time between L’Anse and Florida before dying several years ago.
Lambert got double duty
   “I was the only one of us who went to Korea and Vietnam,” Lambert said. “In Korea I was with the 802nd Engineers as a heavy equipment operator. In Vietnam I was with the 103rd Engineers as a crane operator.
   “After I was in Korea I had to go to Vietnam, about 1965. I thought you were only supposed to have what they called one ‘hardship tour’, and Korea was considered a hardship tour. But they told me I was going to Vietnam.
   “We went aboard ship and then went in by landing craft. The first thing I saw on shore was a Pettibone Cary-Lift! I couldn’t believe it. I told the guys I probably worked on that machine. I had worked at Pettibone in high school,” Lambert said. Adding to the irony, Lambert’s wife, Anne, is the daughter of Pettibone’s inventer, Philip LaTendresse!
   Lambert and the engineers were building roads and camp sites in the jungle of Vietnam. He operated a crane for about nine months before his three years of Army service ended and he came home. “I saw enough of it that I didn’t want to see any more,” he said of the Vietnam war.
   With the 802nd Engineers in Korea Lambert had an interesting experience as a heavy equipment operator. An island of people was facing starvation because of inadequate land to grow crops. A several-year project was underway to build a mile-long dyke to reclaim land for farming.
   “We were reclaiming land from the sea. It was a big dyke. We were drilling and blasting rock. We’d start at each end and make stockpiles. Then with low tide we’d push it all together and hope it’d stay. We lost it several times,” Lambert recalled.
   Korean citizens wanted to help and they’d carry rock to the end of the long dyke by hand. They also pounded pilings by hand, singing and chanting to keep their rhythm while they beat on the pilings day after day.
   When the dyke was complete the Korean government sent a letter of

commendation, and a party was staged for the U.S. troops. The letter from the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, Republic of Korea, thanked the men of Company B, 802nd ngr Bn for their humanitarian efforts.
   “Your direct contribution to the efforts of the Korean people engaged in a tideland reclamation project...have made it possible for 260 families to avail themselves of sufficient land so that they may no longer suffer the hardships of hunger and deprivation that have plagued their existence since 1951,” the vice-minister wrote. Lambert still has the letter.
   “It was quite a deal. Later I ran into guys in Vietnam who had been to Korea and they said the dyke had held,” Lambert said.

Gabe stationed in Germany
   Joe Gabe spent a couple years working in communications at Ft. Hood, TX. He remembers the Vietnam war as winding up at the time. Every couple of months the Army would stage an alert at Ft. Hood. In the middle of the night the troops would be awakened and told to pack immediately. They were not to make any phone calls. They were gathered and place on a plane, ready to transport.
   It was a drill, in case the call came for immediate reinforcements for Vietnam. It never proved to be the real call to the jungle of Southeast Asia for Gabe.   When he was told he was going overseas he learned he was relieved to fined he was going to Germany. The Army had an operation at Worms, and not too far away, a large base at Munich.
   Gabe spent his days stringing wire, climbing telephone poles and seeing to the communication needs of his Army unit. “When the service communication was needed we’d set it up,” Gabe said, “whether it was wiring field tents or whatever they had. We’d also repair radios and things like that.”
   Gabe also had the chance to travel in Europe when he had time off. He visited Munich, Frankfurt, Holland and France.