Remembering Michigan’s Fallen Heroes

She tells her Mom, if anything ever happens,

just know I'm doing what I want to do.

I'm doing what I was meant to do.

The mentality that our service men and women have.

And, they're just so amazingly special.

And I'm just absolutely thrilled to be able to honor, respect and remember

the individuals that we maintain their stories of here at the museum.

Welcome back to another episode of Total Michigan.

I'm your host, Cliff DuVernois.

Our flag does not fly because the wind moves it, it flies with the last breath

of each soldier who died protecting it.

Today we are talking about Memorial Day.

And this day actually holds very special meaning for me, not only

because of the various members of my family who have served, but for so

many families throughout Michigan that have had loved ones that have served

and have paid the ultimate price.

So for this episode today, there was only one place that came to mind with regards

to honoring the, not only the memory, but the stories of the brave men and women of

Michigan who sacrificed so much for you and for me, and for this great country.

Please welcome to the show, the Executive Director of Michigan Heroes

Museum, located in Frankenmuth.

That would be John Ryder.

John, how are you?

I'm doing absolutely wonderful.

Cliff, thank you for asking.

I think you stole my line there.

So tell us a little bit about where you're from and where you grew up.

So I grew up in Hemlock and as, The people in Frankenmuth

would call me, I'm a west sider.

West side of, Saginaw County.

But I grew up over there and at the time, Frankenmuth took everything, right?

And every division, it seemed like Frankenmuth was just everything.

And the place where everybody wanted to be.

And I kinda resented Frankenmuth a little bit at the time because I,

you know, We had an amazing German community over there in, in the west

side of the county and everything.

But I'll tell you what, since working in Frankenmuth, these

people are just absolutely amazing.

The city of Frankenmuth is the most giving amazing community around.

It really truly is.

But when it comes to doing the right thing and stopping and, thinking about others

and trying to do everything with purpose, this city just does everything right.

So, had my hats off to 'em, but I don't think the museum

could exist anywhere else.

Speaking of which, How did you get involved with

the museum in the first place?

So I got involved with the museum because

I was a cub master at the time.

One of my den leaders was on the board here and he asked me if I

was would ever entertain working for someplace like the museum.

And at the time, I wasn't familiar with the museum.

I didn't know I was familiar with the museum.

I didn't realize the museum was the same one that I went to down in the

basement of the old school here in town.

Right.

So the museum was that old, and I didn't even put the two together until I came

through and saw some of the collections.

And I saw the face of the man who started at Stan Bozich.

And when I saw that, I went, oh yeah, I know this place, right?

And I got really excited and I'm like, I want this job.

And I had, you know, that was nine years ago.

And I'm just absolutely thrilled to be able to honor, respect and remember

the individuals that we maintain their stories of here at the museum.

When did the museum first open its doors?

so 19, 70.

okay.

But it moved into the schoolhouse square, mall there, in the eighties.

And to be honest with you, that date doesn't come to me nearly as quickly as

some of the dates of the stories that we

So what I would like to do is I would like to take

an opportunity to explore some of the people that are a part of the museum.

Now, just to do a real quick summary, what is on display here?

if somebody were to come here, they've never been to the Heroes Museum before,

describe to us what that looks like.

So I tell people, we tell the stories

of Michigan service men and women.

And then if they ask for more descriptions, I'll mentally

walk them through the museum to, we've got stories, by era, right?

So, Spanish American War, Civil War, World War I, World War ii,

the Korean War, the Vietnam War.

The Operation Desert Storm and then the, the War on Terror,

both in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And then we tell the stories, in three special galleries.

We tell the stories of our astronauts and space pioneers.

And then we tell stories of the cross recipients, the cross gallery.

Those stories are individuals who received either the Distinguished Service

cross, those would be, outta the Army.

So those would be soldiers Marines or sailors who received the Navy Cross or

airmen that received the Air Force Cross.

Those stories are second to none.

They are absolutely amazing.

They are, for all intents and purposes on.

The, they're so similar.

I defy anybody to be, to come in here, read one of our cross stories, and be

able to tell me how it differs from a Medal of Honor story right there.

It's a, the difference is that the Medal of Honor story was vetted

by, by congressional staffers and the Pentagon and things like that.

That's the difference.

But the stories are absolutely on the same level.

And then the Medal of Honor Gallery as well.

And then as far as displays go.

Yeah.

So for displays, we do, distinguish, the displays a little bit, separately

by using the frames around the photos, which you discovered today, right?

If you see a silver frame around the large photo in the display of the

individual, that silver frame just denotes that they survived their

conflict and they made it home.

They may not still be with us.

The World War II guys, World War I, things like that.

Many of those, World War II guys are gone now.

But they did come home, right?

if you see a gold frame around it, those are gold star individuals.

They did not make it home.

They, they were, they sacrificed their life in service to our country.

And then in the Space Gallery, all those individuals have

a black frame around them.

Today in looking at Memorial Day, we're gonna talk about some of those gold

frame stories that we have at the museum.

Okay.

So one of the first ones I'd like to talk about was Specialist Holly McGeogh.

Holly, by all counts, was an absolutely fascinating, amazing, young lady.

She's five foot tall, red hair.

She was born with a, sight problem.

She had a, they call it what A lazy eye, right?

And she had a horrible time reading, right?

And she didn't enjoy school because of it.

But she loved it.

The J R O T C program, the journal Junior Reserve Officer Training at the

school she went to in Taylor, Michigan.

And she really took to that.

She was super personable.

She loved the order.

She loved the leadership aspects of it.

And she really took off in that.

And her mom made her a deal, said, you know what?

If you graduate with scores high enough to get in the Army, we'll get you surgery.

We'll get you, I'll sign the delayed entry information.

We'll get you in.

And, it took her a couple times, but she ended up getting into the military.

And she became a mechanic with the, with the troops over there.

They, she was working on Humvees and such.

And they leave to crit to go to the keokuk to get, parts right.

So they form up a convoy.

and, the Humvee she was in was, the engineers and such.

they had fastened, or fashioned a, grenade launcher on a makeshift

mount, in the back of the Humvee.

And she was manning that grenade launcher at the time.

When that Humvee in the middle of that column, came over the,

IED that was planting the road.

The the enemy, detonated that, charge and, he, Holly, her mom, was

really, really devastated by that.

And she says, the only reason, that I'm able to, reconcile my grief

is Holly sent back, an email about 10 days prior to losing her life.

Because one of her friends had just lost her life in the unit.

And her mom hears about that at home and she's trying to figure out

what's happened with Holly, right?

So she's calling her command.

She's writing.

Emailing them and everything.

And they're not going to let anybody respond to any of those

things from home until they inform the family themselves, right?

Command wants to make sure that they do it right.

And when Holly gets permission to, she finally responds to her

mom and says, Hey, I'm okay.

It's one of her best friends, right?

And she says, Mom, if something like that ever does happen to me, just

know that I'm doing what I love.

I'm here, surrounded by people that are making a difference.

She says, the people, over here, also don't believe what you hear on the news.

The women bring us fresh, fresh baked bread.

The kids all run up to me and hug me.

She says it's, we aren't hated over here.

In fact, she went on to, to describe to her mom, a time where they, were.

they've, they had, located a bomb manufacturing facility in this building.

And, it, it was an apartment building in one of the apartments.

And, they evacuated everybody.

There were a couple blocks down the road while the e o d special, the explosive

ordinance demolition guys are going through and clearing that building.

And, uh, she's out in the center of the road.

Teaching the kids how to play duck, duck, goose.

And she said, by the time we're done, the kids called it Duck, duck, Alibaba.

And her mom, she tells her Mom, if anything ever happens, just

know I'm doing what I want to do.

I'm doing what I was meant to do.

And, that's the mentality that our service men and women have.

And, they're just so amazingly special.

meant.

Wow.

That's beautiful.

Yeah, I, it's just, it's, it's a story that

just, it hits you right, in the face.

And her life was taken and, too early.

Absolutely.

But she was doing something that mattered to her.

She wouldn't have been one to say, I my life was wasted or anything like that.

She really believed in why she was there and what she did.

Now question I got for you is when.

Holly was killed in the line of duty.

Now, how did her family make the decision to have a display here at the museum?

Her grandfather was familiar with the museum and, Stan

Bozich was talking to the grandfather after he had come to the museum.

And he also kept on contacting Holly's mother.

Finally she said, you know what?

This didn't happen for nothing.

I want everybody to know Holly and remember Holly.

And we do our best to make sure that people do remember her.

We want everybody to remember these stories.

It's the reason why we're working on getting all of our stories online right

now where everybody can access 'em.

It's just really important that these stories get out there in the collective

consciousness so that people can help us honor and respect and remember them.

Certainly, and we have a few more stories that

are coming up for our audience.

We're gonna take a quick break to thank our sponsors, and when we come

back, we'll hear some of these stories.

See you after the break.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Total Michigan.

I'm your host, Cliff DuVernois.

Today we're talking with John Ryder, the Executive Director of the Michigan Heroes

Museum, just outside of Frankenmuth.

Now John, before the break, we were talking a little bit about, our

first hero today that we're honoring,

yeah.

Specialist Holly McGeogh.

Yes.

I would really like to hear another story.

Sure.

The gentleman I'm thinking of is from Brown City, Michigan.

And he's, it's a Vietnam story.

This particular gentleman, his name's DeWayne T Williams, 18 years old.

He's a Marine.

He, graduates, high school in Capac, Michigan.

States Marine Corps reserves.

And then he ends up getting discharged in January so that he

can list with the regular Marines.

He decided, you know what, I want the full deal.

But he ends up he completes recruit training, a bootcamp, and,

he ends up over in, in Vietnam.

When he arrives in the Republic of Vietnam, later that month, he's

assigned duty as an automatic rifleman.

He, is assigned to an anti-tank assault company.

As he's out on patrol one day, they come to the end of their patrol.

They turn around and generally these guys would not know what

route they're taking back.

The, somebody would.

But if somebody loses a piece of paper or whatever, that, that'd be bad.

and general, you know, one of the ways that, the guys in camp know that it's

the right guys is you pop smoke before you come back in on whatever trail it

is that you select to come back in at.

And they know what color smoke they're looking for, right?

And so if you pop smoke, there's a bunch of other enemies generally

around, near other trails, they're gonna pop smoke also and make it

look like they're the guys right?

But It didn't happen constantly.

But that was the reason why these guys would take out several canisters

of smoke other than the ones that they were going to use that day.

So if they, if it got captured or whatever, the enemy couldn't

just come back and, oh, look, let your guard down, open the gates

and we're gonna come storming in.

They pick a trail to come in on.

And the enemy happened to set up an ambush on that trail.

They just, they got lucky.

And unfortunately for these marines, caught the Marines by surprise.

And Dwayne got shot in the spinal column.

And he drops, he's paralyzed for the chest down and he can't move his legs at all.

But he uses upper body strength.

And he pulls himself on his arms into a position where he

can return fire on the enemy.

And his buddies say they're sitting there, returning fire on the

enemies and during the firefight.

And, I don't recall how long into the firefight.

But at some point, a grenade comes sailing across the trail and

lands between him and his buddies.

Dwayne, he just, he, uses upper body strength and rolls over and pulls

that grenade up underneath him.

That was a September day and on that day, It happened to be his 19th birthday.

Dwayne lost his life.

His brother and sister quite often are in here and either

on that day or near that day.

And they're so happy that their mom donated his things to the

museum knowing that his story will always be remembered here.

And we're always gonna honor, respect, and remember Dwayne.

His actions, a lot of individuals when you talk about, why people serve, right?

Some people serve because they, the community or family or a

billion other things, right?

But when it comes down to it, these guys and girls that are in service,

they're there for their buddies.

And that was the only thing probably on Dwayne's mind at that moment.

Sure he could have probably rolled the other way, and taken

minimal, effect from that.

But he saved his brothers in arms and, there's no bigger gift that

could ever be given than that.

I find myself in a position where I don't know what to say.

Yeah.

And you know what, that's probably the, the right reaction,

right?

I would be, surprised if you had any other reaction than that.

I was just thinking about the, it's almost cuz in that

situation there, you're under a firefight, adrenaline is pumping.

You realize my legs aren't working anymore, and then here comes a

grenade and it's not something that you sit and think about.

you just, he just reacted to that grenade being there.

And he paid the ultimate sacrifice, like you said, to save his brother in arms.

Yeah, that's a testament to character right there.

There

Exactly.

I'd like to try to get in here at least one more.

But this one is, Specialist uh, Michael May from Vassar, Michigan.

Michael is, was again in, served during Vietnam.

And he was, Sergeant May, was fifth Special Forces Group, so he

was, uh, part of a MAC V SOG unit.

special operations forces that were embedded with South Vietnamese forces.

Then they served as advisors pretty much.

They're they were helicoptering in to a a site deep in Cambodia.

dropped off, the South Vietnamese and the Green Berets there.

They, Take, they take off to head, back to base.

And as, the story from his buddies.

it's well documented.

As the helicopters are just fading and you can hardly hear 'em anymore.

according to one of the guys there, multiple guys there, but you just heard

the, the safeties click off almost in unison of about a thousand rifles.

Right?

That's hundreds of rifles.

Then these guys are in the middle of one of the largest firefights that

any of 'em had experienced over there.

And, three men, Michael being one of them, remained in the center

of that landing zone that lz while the other guys exfiltrated,

made it out to, one of the sides.

They called the helicopters back.

The helicopters came back, expended all their ammunition

and had to go back for more.

But according to the guys in the helicopters, they saw those three

guys, that were in the middle of that clearing all get shot.

And they they had no way to retrieve them at that point in time.

And when they, went back, the bodies were gone.

it's, it's just an absolutely, devastating for the family.

The sister, Michael's sister re remembers Michael as a, as a.

As a brother, as an annoying brother.

Right.

And, her husband, met up with Michael over there in Vietnam.

And, he tells stories about that.

And, Cindy, his sister would, tell stories about how her mom wasn't

able to ever believe that he died.

I just needs to keep that glimmer hope cuz there was never a body produced.

Right.

And these individuals in these families, we just owe it to them

to always remember the sacrifice.

Whether they were for the action that they were in.

Or whether they would've ever made the decisions themselves as a politician

to, to send anybody into harm's way.

It didn't matter.

These guys were there and girls were, were there when stuff hit the

fan and they paid with their lives.

These individuals are, were and are ready and available on a moment's notice.

So many in, these individuals, you know, to lay down their life for, for, for

you and for me and for their buddies.

It's just a fantastic love that most people never know.

So you've shared with us.

Some really compelling stories and judging by the amount of displays that you have

here, we could probably spend the next few weeks listening to these stories.

My question to you then is a little bit more general, but overall, share with us

what is your vision for the Heroes Museum?

So I think that we just want people to understand what

has been asked of our warriors, right?

We're not saying agree with the politics behind the reason why they're there.

We don't even talk politics here, right?

We've got supporters from both sides of the aisles.

In fact, if I listed them, you wouldn't believe me.

They're an absolutely amazing group of people that support what we do.

But we're not political organization.

we're, we don't take a stance on whether why they were there,

is the right thing or not.

We wanna let people know that these people were there for you.

I just want people to know that the, the museum exists to give

voice to those individuals.

And, you know, maybe on a little lighter side and another day we could

talk about some of the individuals that came in here throughout their

lives or still come in here today, that served and that we talk about.

But today I think the right thing is to talk about those who we just only I

never had the opportunity to meet them.

I know their family, I know their, their stories, but, unfortunately

I'll never have the opportunity to meet these individuals.

John, if somebody's listening to this and they wanna check

out more about the museum, or even better, they decide that I'd like to make the

trek over there and to honor the memories.

What would be the best way for them to do that?

So the best way is, we've got a, a website at www

dot m mi heroes, h e r o e s, dot org.

org And on there we've got a little section on planning a visit to the museum.

And we're gonna be adding to that.

But on there you can read Trip Advisor reviews of what people

have said about the museum.

You can find out our address and right here in Frankenmuth.

And there's a mapping and all kinds of stuff.

But we want, we just want people to know that we are here to serve not only

our veterans, but as a liaison to, from our veterans to the community at large.

People, I don't care whether they ever served or not, or anybody

in your family has any service.

We're here to maybe help you understand the commitment that those

people have to you, even though you may have never have met 'em.

Certainly and for our audience, we'll have the

links that John had talked about in the show notes down below.

Or you can go to total michigan.com and click on John's interview

and find the links there.

John, thank you so much for taking time to talk with us today.

We really appreciate it.