Help us find a war hero’s family

Michael Lee Endicott was born Oct. 8, 1947, in Poplar Bluff.
Pfc. Endicott would have celebrated his 73rd birthday this month, but he was killed Aug. 5, 1967 in the Quang Nam Province of South Vietnam.
He died a month shy of his 20th birthday.
A machine gunner in the U.S. Marine Corps, Pfc. Endicott was awarded the Purple Heart Medal just over a month later for wounds received in action resulting in his death.
Members of New Oak Hill General Baptist Church recently came into possession of the original Purple Heart certificate and they’ve reached out to us for help in returning it to Endicott’s family.
The certificate had somehow found its way into items that were being thrown away, according to church members.
“My pastor, Gene Riddle, is also a Vietnam vet and was severely injured during his stay. He wants desperately to find the family of Pfc. Endicott and give the certificate a good and honorable home. Is there anything you can do to help me with this?” church member Nevada Young wrote. “No one knows why this was in the trash but God saw fit for it to be found and preserved. Any help you can give me is appreciated.”
The certificate was found just a few days after Endicott’s birthday and a shortly before Veterans Day.
It seemed like this was a fitting time to put out the call for help on Endicott’s behalf. It comes at a moment when it seems like more than ever we need help remembering what is important in our country and the sacrifices that have brought us to this moment in history.
The church knows that Endicott was buried in Sacred Heart Cemetery from information found at www.VirtualWall.org, along with a photograph of the young Endicott.
The record shows he was a ground casualty who died during a hostile attack with an explosive device.
He served with K Company, 3rd Battalion, First Marines, First Marine Division.
His paperwork can’t tell us what I suspect to be true, after interviewing many Purple Heart recipients from our area.
It can’t describe the fear that 19-year-old probably felt going into the battle, the responsibility he felt toward those he served with and his country, the love he felt for his family or the life he would have lived when he came home.
Those are the memories other Purple Heart recipients from our area have shared with me over the years.
In 2007, I did a special project dedicated to veterans who had received the Purple Heart and interviewed eight from our region.
I met a World War II veteran from Piedmont who still carried the physical and emotional scars after being critically wounded in Okinawa in 1945, six days before the Japanese island would fall to Allied troops. The force of the blast that left him fighting for his life was so strong it embedded a portion of the chain from his dog tags in his neck, so close to vertebrae doctors never dared remove it.
“I used to say, ‘I’m just a poor country boy, let me do my best,’” Eugene “Gene” Jackson told me, in his 70s at the time. “I would think how nice it would be if I could get out of a foxhole and yell, ‘Hello, buddy, let’s talk. We’re just little guys here.’”
I met Vietnam veterans from Carter and Ripley counties during that project who struggled with the same old wounds, both ones you could see, and ones you couldn’t.
“War is very destructive,” Fred Porter of Naylor told me. His combat injuries almost took his right arm, but doctors were able to repair most of the damage. “The (Vietnamese) were caught in this. About all they got out of life was something to eat, some rice and fruit, the things they grew and a thatch-roof shack. They were poor. Then you would have a battle ... and it would destroy everything they had. The way I see it, they made a lot more sacrifice than us guys did.”
Brad Hubbard of Stoddard County watched news coverage of Vietnam while the elder Hubbard served in that war, and never dreamed of being anything but a Marine.
Hubbard served in the Persian Gulf War.
He was injured in an explosion in 1991, as his company was working their way toward Kuwait City. It would take several days for Hubbard to realize how badly he was injured, not seeking treatment until he temporarily lost the vision in one eye.
“We had people hit on the ground behind me,” he told me. “I got up to check on them. ...I was up, running around, so I thought I must have been fine.”
It would take another decade before the true extent of those hidden injuries would be diagnosed by doctors, when Hubbard’s headaches never really went away and the pain in his back forced him to seek medical help.
At 42, he had multiple operations and was still dealing with nerve damage and other medical problems, but was focused on family.
None of the veterans I interviewed for that project sought glory or recognition.
I had chance meetings with family members of two of those veterans later, and both said they read stories in those articles that hadn’t been shared before. They told me their loved one rarely talked about that time in their life.
I’m grateful they trusted the DAR with their memories at a time when they felt it was important to share them.
I hope that someone can help us find out more about Pfc. Endicott and share his story.
It’s important that we remember these friends and neighbors who have made these sacrifices for our country.
Farley is the editor of the Daily American Republic and can be reached at dfarley.dar@gmail.com.