WEST WYOMING – Vietnam Army veteran Robert Marcy didn’t smile nearly during 20 years of military service, but it wasn’t because he wasn’t enjoying his life.
Instead, Marcy, who recently received a Quilt of Valor as a tribute to his service, was simply focused on the job at hand.
When asked if he had fun while doing that job, he said, “I wouldn’t have stayed if I wasn’t having fun.”
Marcy remembers wanting to be in the military from before he was 5 years old.
“I used to tell my family that I wanted to be a ‘sholder,’ before I could even correctly pronounce it,” he said.
The military quilt, which he received in a ceremony at Fox Hill County Club, recently is red, white and blue, carefully stitched and provides a bit of warmth and comfort.
The presentation of the quilt goes back to a dream a military mom had in 2003 when she realized many veterans return from war with PTSD.
In the dream, she saw a soldier suffering in a hospital and a quilt placed around him giving him comfort. Based on the dream, she established the Quilts of Valor Foundation.
Originally, the quilts were given to the physically or psychologically wounded.
The purpose of the quilts was broadened over time, and now they have come to symbolize gratitude and honor to all who have served.
As Marcy told his story on a recent afternoon, he was quick to place the quilt in his lap, enjoying its warmth and taking time to talk about what inspired him to join the Army and, why all these years later, he is glad he did.
He tried to enlist when he was just 17, but his mother wouldn’t sign the papers. Instead, he joined the National Guard.
A few years later, at 22, then married to his wife Nancy, he opted out of his commitment to the Guard and joined the Army.
Because he had been a member of the National Guard, he immediately attained the rank of Sergeant and attended a refresher training.
He was originally assigned to Fort Carson, then transferred to the Panama Canal Zone for three years. He was able to bring his wife along because he was a non-commissioned officer.
From there, his career in the service took him all around the world from Japan to Alaska to Jamaica to England — places, he said, he never imagined he would see.
“The first time I went, I thought those places were amazing, beautiful,” he said. “But, then you get used to them.”
The same, he said, applies to the concept of war.
“You get used to it,” he said. “Because you have to.”
In 1965, he started his first of two tours in Vietnam which he finds very difficult to explain.
“It’s difficult to explain to someone if they were never there,” he said. “It’s something much easier to talk about to another veteran.”
Marcy looks back on his years spent in the service from 1957 through 1978 as the foundation of his life.
Now at 84, he and Nancy are enjoying the quietness of life in the Toy Town section of West Wyoming, but he is quick to look back on his memories and give a bit of advice if asked.
“I think that the military is a good choice for young people,” he said. “It provides money for college and good training.”
