Army Cpl. Kenneth Jurgens of Hopkinton stands dressed for combat in this 1967 photo taken just before he was killed in action in Vietnam.
Posted on 03/25/2008 12:17:23 PM PDT by mdittmar
Medals ceremony today for Hopkinton soldier killed in Vietnam
An Iowa farm boy killed 41 years ago in Vietnam still speaks to those willing to listen.
Cpl. Kenneth Jurgens, whose memory will be honored tonight by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, spoke to his own family on the day of his funeral, nine days after a sniper's bullet killed him, through a letter left unmailed on his bunk before his last mission.
And the intact collection of all 27 letters Jurgens wrote to his parents during his 10-month Army career still provides penetrating insights into the mind-set of a duty-bound draftee who would have rather been farming.
"He was just a good kid, a quiet boy who loved farming and did his duty," Jurgen's older sister, Kay Lawrence, 66, of Dyersville, said Monday.
Jurgens, a 1965 graduate of St. Paul's High School in Worthington, was drafted into the Army on May 7, 1966. He arrived in Vietnam on Jan. 10, 1967, and was killed by small-arms fire while on ambush patrol in Operation Junction City on March 18, 1967. This evening, more than 41 years later, Grassley will formally present Jurgens' medals
— which include the Bronze Star and Purple Heart — to the soldier's family during a private ceremony at Diny's Steakhouse in Delhi.
Before leaving on his last patrol, Jurgens wrote a letter to his parents, the late William and Marynette Jurgens. One of his comrades found it on his bunk and posted it after Jurgens' death.
"The day of the funeral, here was this letter from Kenny in the mailbox. We all took turns reading it and crying,'' Jurgens' older sister, Darlene Bradt, 67, of Chatfield, Minn., said.
In his direct style, almost bereft of personal pronouns, Jurgens wrote:
"Still in Operation Junction City. Been clearing roads so have it pretty easy for awhile. Went on an ambush patrol last night and got one V.C. Suppose to go on another patrol in an hour or so."
Twenty of Jurgens' 27 letters to his parents were posted in the United States and recounted his training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and at Fort Riley in Kansas.
In the seven letters from Vietnam, Jurgens' matter-of-fact accounts of life "in country" surely raised his parents' apprehension level.
The danger seemed ominous in a March 3 letter in which Jurgens told his parents that an enemy rocket blew one of his comrades to pieces. "There were three other guys hit by shrapnel, but I guess they will be OK," he said.
Jurgens' dry sense of humor surfaced in many of his letters.
In a letter from Vietnam, Jurgens told his parents about a night patrol in dense jungle that took four hours to travel a mile.
"Had to chop a path about the whole way. Didn't ambush anybody and it's no wonder as nobody would go where we went," he said.
Though Jurgens never complained of Army life, it was apparent from the comments that concluded each letter where his heart resided.
"I guess it won't be long and you'll be in the field again. How much corn will you have this year?" Jurgens said in his last letter home.
Jurgens planned his last major leave to coincide with corn picking on the family farm, which he would have taken over upon his parents' retirement.
"Kenny missed his turn," said Rod Jurgens, the soldier's nephew, who with his brother Richard is the fifth generation of the Jurgens family to farm the land between Hopkinton and Worthington.
Seeds of the commemoration ceremony were planted more than a year ago when Rod Jurgens noticed a "40 years ago" item on Kenneth Jurgens' death in the Manchester Press. Rod Jurgens showed the item to Gary Besler of Hopkinton, a retired Air Force enlisted man and member of the Patriot Guard Riders, a national organization that expresses its appreciation of veterans by attending fallen soldiers' funerals,
"Gary said, 'You need to do something about that.' He volunteered to look into it, and then it snowballed," Rod Jurgens said.
Besler went through military channels to round up Jurgens' medals, along with state and national flags that had flown over their respective capitals. He coordinated the gathering of the letters and other personal effects and enlisted Hopkinton resident and Vietnam veteran Norm Parsons to build a shadow box to display the memorabilia.
A recently established Kenneth Jurgens scholarship, to be awarded annually to a Maquoketa Valley High School student, will "see to it that Kenny's name is spoken at least once a year," said Besler.
Jurgens left the comfort and safety of the farm "as just an ordinary Iowan who answered the call of duty. He came back as a decorated American soldier who gave his life for his country without question or reservation," Besler said.
Two other Worthington residents — Gary Frasher and David Sherlock, both Army 1st lieutenants — were among the 869 Iowans killed in action in Vietnam.
Never Forget ping
Farm boy to soldier to hero! God Bless him!
Those were the real heroes.
Most gave some; many gave more; and some gave all.
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