| Vietnam vet finally may
rest in peace
U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Jack
Rittichier took the long way home from the Vietnam
War.
Unlike most of his comrades
from that war, the Barberton native is coming home to a hero's
welcome.
Unfortunately, he's not alive
to witness it. Yet, his family is at peace that the journey is
finally over.
Jennifer Rittichier Holmer --
Lt. Rittichier's niece -- shared the bittersweet news: "It has
been 35 years since my uncle was killed in Vietnam."
"His body was never recovered,"
the Suffield Township woman said.
It wasn't for the lack of
trying.
"Several attempts were made,"
she noted. "Only recently were investigators able to go
back."
With the notification that Lt.
Rittichier's remains (his date of loss was June 9, 1968) had
finally been located, came a welcome gesture: burial in Arlington
National Cemetery.
Lt. Rittichier's remains were
matched in part by using the DNA of brother Dave
Rittichier.
Lt. Rittichier was one of three
Barberton brothers, Jack, Dave and Henry. Their parents, Carl and
Ruby Rittichier, died in an automobile accident in
1978.
Dave Rittichier, who now
resides in Erwin, Tenn., said he was always confident a
government search mission "would one day result in finding my
brother's remains. It was like finding a needle in a haystack.
But they finally found him."
"As children we lived at
Portage Lakes, and we would swim all summer long and push inner
tubes," said Dave Rittichier, 68.
Lt. Rittichier was intensely
involved in athletics in his youth. He played football at
Coventry High School and Kent State University, where he was team
captain. He also was involved in Air Force ROTC.
He was commissioned as an
officer in the Air Force in August 1957 and was discharged as a
captain in 1963 to accept a commission as a lieutenant (junior
grade) in the Coast Guard.
The young pilot earned
accolades for his search and rescue missions, most notably for
his role as a co-pilot of a helicopter that flew 150 miles from
Detroit during a horrible ice storm to pluck eight seamen from
the grounded West German motor vessel NORDEER just before it
broke up on Lake Erie.
Two weeks after arriving in
Vietnam, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for
rescuing four Army helicopter crew members in hostile
fire.
That was just the tip of the
iceberg when it came to Lt. Rittichier's heroics.
His last would be June 9, 1968.
The Barberton native and pilot was shot down with three other
soldiers while attempting to rescue a downed Marine on the Ho Chi
Minh Trail.
The family in all of its
sadness has tried to keep Lt. Rittichier's memory
alive.
"My brother Henry -- who is
nine years younger and lives in Houston, Texas -- has four
children," Dave Rittichier said. "He named one after Jack and one
after me."
Lt. Rittichier had been married
11 years when he died. The couple had no children.
Further testimony to Lt.
Rittichier's indelible impact -- he was the Coast Guard's first
combat casualty and its last MIA -- is a Web site created by
Stacey Jones in his memory: www.faraway-soclose.org
The 26-year-old Texarkana,
Ark., woman first got involved with the POW/MIA cause in 1998
when she was surfing the Internet and found a Web page paying
tribute to an MIA soldier someone had adopted.
Jones -- whose only other
connection to the military is her grandfather, who served in the
Army in World War II -- has adopted seven Vietnam MIAs, one from
every military branch and a female civilian surgeon.
Lt. Rittichier was among Jones'
MIA adoptees. "I cried, and I laughed when I heard the news that
his remains had been found," said Jones, who will attend his
burial.
Jennifer Holmer said as many
family members as possible will attend the Oct. 6
burial.
Dave Rittichier is uncertain if
his brother's widow, Carol Rittichier Wypick of Fountain Valley,
Calif., will be able to attend the Arlington National Cemetery
ceremony service. She in the middle of a huge battle of her own,
cancer.
That's why the family is
requesting in lieu of flowers that donations in Lt. Rittichier's
name be made to the American Cancer Society.
What better way for him to rest
in peace?
Jewell Cardwell can be reached
at 330-996-3567 or jcardwell@thebeaconjournal.com
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