Riverhead remembers native sons killed in Vietnam War

Though the war that took more than 58,000 American lives ended nearly 40 years ago, emotions still run high among veterans and most people old enough to remember that tumultuous, troubled time.

You don’t forget being cursed at and spat upon by fellow citizens because you wore a military uniform — or even just because you sported a military-style buzz cut, said Riverhead native Tom Turnbull, a U.S. Navy veteran.

He recalls the day he offered to help “a little old lady” cross a San Francisco street. She looked at the sailor “and started whacking me with her cane, yelling ‘Get away from me, you killer,'” Turnbull said.

“It was a very confusing time,” said Turnbull, who served in the Navy from 1964 to 1969, doing two tours of duty on the USS Preston destroyer. Like all veterans of the Vietnam era, he still grapples with its aftermath. “You came home and you were treated as less than dog doo,” he said, “just because you wore a military uniform.”

Turnbull, now a park ranger for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, lives in New Mexico. He used to work at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial State Park in Angel Fire, New Mexico, the site of the country’s first major Vietnam memorial. The Angel Fire memorial draws some 50,000 visitors a year.

Turnbull brought the idea of a memorial brick walkway to the park.

“I remembered the brick walk at the Congregational church in Riverhead,” Turnbull said. “I had my nephews take pictures of it to show the park managers.”

Today the are more than 5,000 bricks laid out around the Angel Fire memorial, each bearing the name of a Vietnam veteran, living or deceased.

Turnbull purchased and placed bricks in memory of two Riverhead native sons killed in the Vietnam war. One placed in the Medal of Honor walkway memorialized Riverhead Medal of Honor recipient Garfield M. Langhorn, a 20-year-old U.S. Army private who threw himself on a live grenade to protect fellow soldiers on Jan. 15, 1969. See prior stories about Langhorn: A Gold Star Mother remembers (May 30, 2010);  Honoring a local hero (Sept. 27, 2010);  Pulaski Street School library named in memory of local war hero, Garfield Langhorn (Sept. 17, 2011); Riverhead street dedicated to fallen Vietnam War hero (Nov. 11, 2011); Family and friends of Riverhead Medal of Honor recipient record memories of fallen solider (May 6, 2013).

The other brick placed by Turnbull is in memory of his good friend, Lowell Wayne Meyer, killed May 17, 1969 at age 23.

Meyer and Turnbull grew up in the same downtown neighborhood — Meyer on Newton Avenue and Turnbull on Elton Street. Meyer, Turnbull and a third boy, Jimmy Everett were inseparable, Turnbull recalled. They remained close through high school, though Meyer was a year ahead, a member of the class of 1963. All three entered the Navy in 1964 and entered machinist mate’s school.

“Wayne was into swimming, always a lifeguard. He was a scuba diver. He was always in the water during the summer,” Turnbull recalled. “When the opportunity came up to test for the underwater demolition team, a precursor to the Navy Seals, he took the test and passed with flying colors,” Turnbull said.

Meyer, a petty officer, was killed three days before he was supposed to come home, Turnbull said.

“There was a mortar attack on their camp. One of the mortar shells didn’t explode,” he said. Meyer, a munitions expert, was working to disarm it when it exploded.

“They think it was a delayed fuse,” Turnbull said.

The news of his buddy’s death, which Turnbull got via a phone call from his sister, was “so devastating,” he said. “It was like somebody hit me in the head with a two-by-four.”

Everett was also killed, Turnbull said. He died in a car accident near Wildwood Lake while home on leave.

Like countless Vietnam vets, Turnbull grapples with “survivor’s guilt” — and the sense that Vietnam veterans, at first despised and maltreated, are now largely forgotten and overlooked.

Riverhead lost three other native sons to the Vietnam war, according to the Vietnam Wall Memorial database.

Spc. James Reese Walters, 21, was killed May 13, 1969, a few days before Meyer. Walters lived just a two blocks away from Meyer,on Howell Avenue. A 1967 Riverhead High School graduate, he was a helicopter repairman. He died when the helicopter he was riding in went down over Thua Thien Province, South Vietnam.

Franklin Tinsley, 20, was shot and killed Oct. 6, 1968. He lived on Brown Street in Riverside and was a member of the Riverhead High School class of 1967.

“Frank Tinsley was just like a brother to me,” recalled Thomas Gallo Sr. of Riverhead. “He was my friend and will remain my friend for the rest of my life. Good friends never die,” Gallo said. Gallo’s sister, Bernadette Johnston, remembers Tinsley stopping at her family’s home on the day he was shipping out.

“He was a wonderful friend,” Johnston said. “He was a gentleman, even as a child.”

Richard Pinta, 21, of Flanders, was killed July 29, 1967. The aviation mechanic died aboard the USS Forestal, in the Gulf of Tonkin, North Vietnam. He was one of 134 men killed in a fire and series of chain-reaction explosions after a rocket was discharged on the flight deck due to an electrical power surge. The rocket struck the fuel tank of a Skyhawk fighter jet awaiting launch. That triggered an intense fire and a series of nine bomb explosions on the flight deck.

Pinta, entered the Navy upon graduating from Riverhead High School in 1964, said his half-brother, Robert Olson.

“Richard was a very serious and hard working young man. He often worked three part-time jobs while still in high school,” Olson recalled.

Pinta’s younger sisters, Marie Pinta and Patricia Begin were children when their brother left for war. Their memories of him are fuzzy.

“I remember certain things,” Begin recalled. She was just 6 years old when he went into the Navy and 9 when he was killed. “I remember him teaching me to play Monopoly. I remember washing his car with him. And the pool table he built.”

Everybody liked Richard, Begin said.

Both sisters remember their mother getting the news of their brother’s death.

“He was supposed to be coming home soon. I remember my mother getting the letter,” Begin said. Marie Pinta remembers an officer coming to their door to deliver it.

“I didn’t really understand what happened,” Begin recalled. “When it finally hit me that he wouldn’t come home again, it devastated me. It totally changed everything for me.”

The aroma of cherry-flavored pipe tobacco still triggers memories of Richard, she said. “I had an interest in going to smoke shops just to smell that smell, just to remember him.”

Begin cherishes a bronze plaque presented to her mother by the Navy. It is inscribed with Pinta’s name, his date of death and the words “USS Forrestal.”

It’s all she has left of her brother besides the snippets of childhood memories that play in her mind like an old movie reel.

“He was my hero,” Begin said.

Editor’s note: These five men were the listed in the Vietnam Memorial Wall database. If you know of any other Vietnam War casualties, RiverheadLOCAL would appreciate any information you are able to provide. Please click here to send a message to the editor.