BE OUR GUEST; WE CAN ALL LEARN FROM THE LIFE AND DEATH OF RICHARD WILSON

Andrew David Oxford is a Cape Girardeau resident and free-lance writer. He currently has a novel being offered to national publishing houses and is working on another. He and his wife, Penny, have a two-year-old son, Andrew. Jr.

"And ye shall hear of wars, and rumours of wars........"

Matthew ~~:6

Turn on the television n~ews tonight. There will be a story about a war ta~king place ... somew~here. There will be a story about a war preparing to ta~ke place ... somewhere. A 2000-year-old quotation will ring prophetic. A child's video game and video footage shot from the nose of a "smart" bomb, or the wing camera of an F-15 fighter plane. The chief difference seems to be in how the score is ~kept. We forget about the medals given to the surviving young brides, and the flags to grieving mothers. We also ta~ke for granted the quality of life bought for us with red blood.

It is a debt of ~karma that we owe our war veterans. A debt that is only repaid by standing ready to fight for the next generation. The city of Cape ~Girardeau honors her sons who have done their part to repay~ that obligation. One of those sons looms large among our community's courageous. Richar~d Wilson was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. It is the highest honor that a soldier can receive. Wilson was awarded the medal, posthumously, in 19~~51 for bravery during the Korean Conflict.

Wilson was a hero, of that there can be no doubt. It happened on Oct. 21, 1950. ~Wilson, a PFC, was ~in an ambush~ near Suchon in what is now North Korea. His unit, the 187th Airborne Regiment, ~~~~~~~too~k heavy casualties. As a medic, Wilson had to repeatedly leave sheltered areas unarmed to tend to his comrades. The unit was able to withdraw eventually, but Wilson returned to the battlefield alone to try to rescue a soldier who had been given up for dead. Sgt. 1st class James Hardin, of Laurel Hill, N.C. returned to discover Wilson's body, "With a morphine syrette clutched in his hand." He was only 19-~years-old.

~~Today one will find Wilson's name adorning a theater at the ~101st~~~'s home base at Ft. Campbell, Ky., a training center for medics at Ft. Sam Houston in Texas, and Cape Girardeau's VFW post. These things, however, tell us nothing about what kind of man Richard Wilson was. Sure most pe~ople realize that he was some kind of hero, after all his name is on the building, but they've got other things on their minds. In the heart of one Cape Girardeau resident, Richard Wilson is a bright, sweet memory. She is his mother, Alice Wilson.

Alice Wilson remembers a boy who loved music. "They had a choir at May Greene school. One Easter, the whole choir sang at church," she recalls. Richard's real passion however, was for the sports~. "He loved football. He won a medal from the eight ~(area) high schools," Mrs. Wilson said. Wilson was also a champion boxer. In 1949, he reached the finals of the Golden Gloves tournament in St. Louis. At Cape Central High School, he lettered for three years, and won the praise of legendary Central coach Lou Muegge. "Dick was a fine, tough little football player," Muegge said.

It may have been Wilson's love of sport, however, that led him to the Army. "There was a carnival down in Smelterville (south Cape)," Mrs. Wilson explains. "They had a boxer, and were offering $25 to any man who could beat him. Richard's friends put him up to it, I believe, and he knocked out the carnival boxer." The seemingly happy ending had a cruelly ironic twist to it when Coach Muegge informed Wilson that he was ineligible to play high school football because ~~boxing for money had ruined his amateur status.

Wilson told his mother that if he couldn't play football, he didn't want to return to Central to finish out his senior year. On Aug. 19th, 19~49, his 17th birthday, Richard Wilson enlisted in the United States Army.

Wilson was obviously well-suited to be an army medic. He was known to have a well-developed sense of selflessness and loyalty. In 1946, ~his parents divorced~~ and Alice Wilson was forced to care for seven children without a husband. In order to help make ends meet, Richard took a job at the ice company. Wilson would also entertain the family, and neighbors. "He was the only one who could bring fireworks around," says brother Ron Wilson of Cape Girardeau.

This characteristic also carried over into army life. During training at Ft. Sam Hou~ston, Wilson took up for a friend who got into a scuffle in the chow line. The friend was getting the worst end of the fight when Wilson intervened. "Richard used his boxing skills, and put the ~aggressor in the hospital for a week," says Alice Wilson. This was a man who put others ahead of himself. This trait of Wilson's is still legendary whenever members of the 187th reunite.

In Korea, Richard Wilson's heroism cost him his life. Heroism is what we call it, but to Wilson it was a way of life. Not to have gone after his fallen mate would have been simply unthinkable~ for him. All that Wilson~ was, and would ever be, was embodied in that moment he rushed to a fallen soldier's side, amidst a hail of enemy bullets. It had nothing to do with courage for Wilson, he was simply doing what he felt he had to do. Isn't it interesting how following through with on~~e's convictions at all times can lead to acts of heroism? We can all learn from Richard Wilson's death~, an important lesson about living.

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