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RIFLES CRACK, BUT FRIENDSHIP IS CEMENTED --
Aging honor guard stands tall, even when
fallen is one of its own.
All Veterans Honor Guard member Paul
Ritchlin, 75, weeps
for friend and comrade Waymon Griffin after officiating at his
funeral Thursday at Fort Logan National Cemetery. The man
they all called "Griff" was a founder of the group that
presides over funerals for other veterans, giving them
rifle salutes and tributes they otherwise would not receive.
(photo: Darin McGregor / News)
Story here...
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/
drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5258056,00.html
Story below:
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Rifles crack, but friendship is cemented
Aging honor guard stands tall - even when
fallen is one of its own
By Jim Sheeler, Rocky Mountain News
LAKEWOOD - The old Buick with the handicapped placard pulled out of the
American Legion parking lot as it had so many times before, following a
pickup truck filled with loaded rifles and weathered men.
"This sure as hell isn't one I've been looking forward to," said
75-year-old Paul Ritchlin. "This will be the most difficult one I've
ever done."
Together, the men have stood for hundreds of funerals, remaining steady
at the crack of rifle volleys, and heard Taps in their sleep.
They have stood near grave sites in rain and sleet, heat and hail.
Sometimes, they have been surrounded by hundreds of family members. Many
times, they've stood alone, alongside the casket of a man they've never
met, a man with no other family but a bunch of old men who volunteered
to hold the flags.
As they neared the place they know too well - the place where most of
those funerals have taken place - the two men in the front seat tried to
prepare for one more.
"It feels different. Something's missing," said 77-year-old Boe Simpson,
who used to serve as a chaplain, his voice cracking.
"This is why I didn't want to do the service," he said, wiping a tear.
"Something's missing," he said again, then corrected himself.
"Someone, I should say," he said.
"Someone is missing."
Final service in snowy field
Thursday morning, the headstones at Fort Logan National Cemetery
sprouted through snowdrifts as high as the names on the markers.
"Gardens of stone," said one of the men, as he looked out at the white
fields, still blanketed from recent blizzards.
During the past two weeks, the roughly 100 men (and one woman) of the
All Veterans Honor Guard have stood in the stinging snow at Fort Logan
during those blizzards, just as they have for the past 13 years.
"I've got two brothers buried here who were killed in World War II, and
a nephew who died in Vietnam," Ritchlin said. "And more friends than I
can think of anymore."
As he navigated the icy walkway with his cane, he was soon joined by men
carrying oxygen tanks, their uniforms jingling with miniature medals,
their belt buckles bearing the logo "AVHG" and their caps affixed with
the same patch: All Veterans Honor Guard.
Ritchlin says he's seen men hide their walkers behind the shelters
before hoisting the flags for the families. Some of the older guys (the
vast majority are between the ages of 70 and 80) have trouble raising
the rifles to their shoulders, he said, but they always manage to fire
together.
Thursday morning, the younger men - those in their 50s and 60s - helped
the older veterans, whose white hair blended into the snowy cemetery.
Before the funeral procession arrived, they traded good-natured insults
about different branches of the service, amid talk of prostate problems
and hip replacements.
The group presided over 621 burials last year, the highest since its
inception, as World War II and Korean War veterans continue to die in
increasing numbers. During the past 12 years, they've overseen more than
5,000 burials - "enough for a small army," Ritchlin said.
On the fourth day of the new year, they prepared for their 15th funeral
of 2007.
The All Veterans Honor Guard began in 1993, after the government stopped
providing full military honors for all veterans, citing time and cost
concerns. Officers still received the rifle salute, but for the infantry
grunts, there was no guarantee anyone would be there to fold the flag
for the last time.
Though that policy changed within the past several years - two
active-duty service members are now required for each funeral - the
honor guard continued to serve.
Simpson, a Korean War veteran, formed the group with Waymon Griffin, a
feisty World War II veteran and retired tow-truck driver who was also
furious as he watched fellow veterans pass away without recognition.
Ritchlin joined soon afterward, calling himself "the third leg of the
milk stool" that formed the foundation of the group.
They bought their own uniforms, purchased their own weapons - World War
II-era M-1 rifles - and began showing up at every burial.
Each member volunteers his time. Sometimes, that means spending all day
at Fort Logan, where many of the gravediggers know their names. Through
health problems and lack of donations, the group continued to grow, and
the men never failed to show.
Not long ago, Ritchlin sat down with one of the men who started it all,
Griffin - the man they all called "Griff" - and made a pact.
"He asked that if he were to die first, that I give his service,"
Ritchlin said. "And if I were to go first, he would do mine."
As the funeral procession neared, Ritchlin shouted the command he hoped
never to give.
"Honor guard," he said. "Ten-HUT!"
'Rough as a corn cob'
Griffin was born in Oak Grove, Ark., to a poor family that needed every
hand available to work.
When he was 14 years old, the story goes, his father had his birth
records changed to indicate that he was 16, enabling him to find a job
to help pay the bills. Two years later, during the draft for World War
II, his records showed him as 18 years old, and the 16-year-old was soon
parachuting over the Philippines with the 11th Airborne.
Before he returned, his family says he was decorated with honors that
included three Purple Hearts, along with Silver and Bronze stars.
"We had seven campaigns going across the Pacific. Seven campaigns,"
Griffin said during an interview in 2001. "I got shot three separate
times and a bayonet stuck through my leg once. Once was all I'd let him
stick me. I shot him. Made me mad."
He rarely spoke of his war experiences, but when he did, he focused on
the men who never returned, the ones whose funerals he never saw.
"One hundred eighty-seven went overseas and only five of us came home
alive," he said. "Of those who came back, we were wounded, all of us."
Of those five, Griffin was the last one left.
He moved to Denver in the 1940s, where he worked for the Denver & Rio
Grande Railroad. He later started Griff's Towing Service, along with his
wife, Ruby, and they ran the business together for more than two
decades. This year, they would have celebrated their 45th wedding
anniversary.
At his funeral, tow trucks joined the procession.
With only an eighth-grade education, "He used to say, 'I'm just an
ignorant hillbilly.' " Ritchlin said. "But he was educated in other
ways."
After retirement, Griffin joined a slew of service organizations but
spent the bulk of his time at Fort Logan, where he commanded the new
volunteers as if he had never left the Army.
"He'd dress down anyone who wasn't pulling his load," Ritchlin said,
noting that Griffin was especially annoyed if the rifle squad fired out
of sequence, when instead of each volley sounding like one shot, it
sounded like popping corn.
Griffin even chewed out a priest when, after the "ashes to ashes, dust
to dust" recitation, he sprinkled dirt on the American flag atop a
casket.
"Griff told him, 'Don't you EVER throw dirt on that flag again,' "
Ritchlin remembered. "He said, 'A lot of (the dead man's) friends died
for that flag. You can put holy water on it, but you don't put dirt on
that casket until we've folded the flag.'
"He was rough as a corn cob," Ritchlin said, "but with a heart as big as
his entire body."
In his spare time, Griffin scoured junkyards, stuffing his garage with
spare parts he would never use. Occasionally, he found gloves or other
clothing inside the cars and donated them to charity. He also made
regular deliveries of donated food from the American Legion to needy
families and shelters.
In recent years, however, each funeral took a higher toll.
"His body was worn out. I saw him one time stripped to his shorts at the
VA. He had wounds you couldn't imagine," Ritchlin said. "But that old
man, until the day he died, could field-strip an M-1 rifle and put it
back together again."
Griffin died Dec. 30 at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Denver. He was
80.
"In later years, it became difficult for him to raise his hand in a
salute," Ritchlin said. "But he did. Every time. And we always saluted
each other when we parted."
A hard promise fulfilled
In the place he had stood at attention so many times before, the tough
Korean War veteran's bottom lip quivered.
"Today, I am fulfilling a promise that I had hoped I would never have to
keep," Ritchlin said inside Funeral Shelter C at Fort Logan.
"We have had to do this far too many times and it has been hard, but
never harder than this time," he said. "I have stood shoulder to
shoulder with this brother through hundreds of services, and we became
more than friends and fellow veterans."
Nearby, nearly 100 of the honor guard volunteers stood outside the
shelter, as always, on the outskirts, waiting to perform their duty.
"What he has started has grown into one of the proudest achievements
that one veteran can do for another," Ritchlin said. "His dedication,
service and commitment to the All Veterans Honor Guard has inspired all
those who have joined our ranks in this most noble of causes."
Outside the funeral shelter, the rifle squad readied their weapons.
Each volley sounded like a single shot.
Hundreds of funerals take toll
After the service, Ritchlin dried his tears with a white dress glove.
"You did fine," Simpson said. "You did fine."
"That was tough," he said. "Thanks for standing beside me."
Several years ago, Simpson gave up his official capacity as commander of
the honor guard. He cited health reasons, but he says the damage wasn't
just physical.
He's seen widows crying over caskets and has heard their wails. He's
seen children and grandchildren entering a cemetery for the first time.
"I just thought the emotional toll was too much. The families grieving,"
he said. "It usually started with the rifle squad and then intensified
with Taps. But we had to keep the service going professionally, and try
to give that guy - or that lady - the honor that was due."
After more than a decade with the group, Ritchlin says his time has also
come to a stop.
"The last time I (performed the ceremony) I was just overcome with
grief. I cracked up," he said. "I started doing the rifle squad because
then I could at least lean up against a tree and didn't have to say the
words."
During a picnic last year, Ritchlin announced to the American Legion
that he and Griffin would retire from the honor guard.
Griff, however, had a correction.
"He took the microphone and said, 'We're not retiring.'
"He said, 'We're stepping back, but we're not retiring.' "
As the two men drove back through the cemetery on the path they know by
heart, Ritchlin remembered the words of another member of the honor
guard - one they buried here several years ago.
"His name was Lee Schultz. He was close to 90 years old before he passed
away. He worked a funeral two weeks before he died," Ritchlin said.
"Once someone asked him, 'How long are you old guys going to keep this
up?' And he said, 'Until the last damn man is standing.'
"And we will," Ritchlin said as he drove past the headstones.
"Until the last damn man is standing."
Help the Guard
• To donate to the All Veterans Honor Guard, write to A.L. Post 1992
(Honor Guard), 16070 E. Dartmouth Place, Aurora, CO 80013, or call
303-696-8714.
sheelerj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2561
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Larry Scott
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