BROOKINGS — When Brookings resident Leo Stirling, 78 and retired since he was 60, looks back on life, he sees a career of four decades of military service during which he was a private, a Navy petty officer third class, and a command sergeant major.
It began in 1965. He was 17 years old and attending Parkston High School when he enlisted in the South Dakota Army National Guard. He would graduate in 1966.
In November 1967, he would be in-country Vietnam — as an EN (engineman), petty officer third class at the Navy Communications Station, Cam Ranh Bay. His year-long tour of duty followed eight weeks of Navy basic training (boot camp) and two months of engineman/diesel mechanic school.
“There were about 500,000 American troops when I got there,” Stirling told The Brookings Register in a 2017 interview. “I was there during Tet of ‘68.”
In Vietnam, he ran the generators, worked on vehicles and pulled security duty. Following his one-year tour of duty from 1967 to 1968, he finished his remaining six months of Navy active duty aboard the USS Horne DLG-30, a guided missile destroyer. He was discharged in 1969. Following his 2½ years in the Navy, he returned to the Guard. He served a total of 38 years, retiring in April 2008 as command sergeant major of the 88th Troop Command.
Stirling worked civil service full-time as a mechanic for 38 years. “I had to be in the Guard to have that job,” he explained.
In retirement, Stirling has been involved with several different veterans’ organizations: Vietnam Veterans of America (Northeast South Dakota Chapter); Veterans of Foreign Wars; American Legion; Disabled American Veterans; and the Brookings Military Affairs Committee.
Stirling and his wife, Marilyn “Bomber” Bombeck, have been members of Rolling Thunder for about 25 years. There has been some misconception at times that to be a member of Rolling Thunder, one must be a veteran and a motorcyclist: not so. Rolling Thunder’s mission is to recognize and keep alive POW/MIA issues. Rolling Thunder, Chapter 2, here in Brookings has been doing that: helping veterans in need and in the placement of black granite benches in veterans’ parks, so the POWs/MIAs are remembered and not forgotten.
The above being said, Stirling and Bombeck have gone to Washington, D.C., about six times with fellow members of Rolling Thunder for the annual Memorial Day Weekend motorcyclist ride.
In Brookings, benches have been placed on the campus of South Dakota State University and on the grounds of the Brookings County Courthouse. And across the state, about 15 more benches have been placed.
Over the years, Stirling has been on both the giving end and the receiving end of being a veteran. For several years, he was a driver for the DAV, taking patients to and from Sioux Falls for VA health visits. However, because of some health issues of his own, he has stopped driving. But he continues to help with DAV fundraisers, which takes up much of his time.
To be noted is that Stirling himself is a member of the DAV: “Running generators, I lost most of my hearing,” he explained. “I’ve got tinnitus so bad, the VA gives me hearing aids. They’ve got good ones. You don’t even know people are wearing them.”
Stirling believes that veterans today are much more supported and appreciated than they have been at times in the past: “When we got back from Vietnam, I didn’t feel very appreciated. I was flying home from Seattle when I got back from Vietnam. Th stewardess came up and said that seeing I was flying standby there were leftover meals if I wanted one.” That condescending attitude didn’t set well with him.
Stirling and Bombeck have one married daughter, two grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
They live in the Meadow Green area of Brookings, where they moved in 2000. “We wanted to get someplace where we didn’t have to maintain the lawn and take care of anything, and then we’d have it for retirement,” he said.
— Contact John Kubal at [email protected].
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