TROY — The Miami Valley Veterans Museum, 2245 South County Road 25 A, Troy, welcomes Springfield resident John Eichelberger, for the monthly 9 a.m. program on Aug. 7, with a breakfast of coffee and pastries beginning at 8:30 a.m., courtesy of Miami County Veterans Services.
Eichelberger will excite the audience with accounts of his two tours (1967-1969) as a U.S. Marine in the Vietnam War, and as an athlete. Eichelberger has won medals three times at the National Veterans Golden Age Games while competing in the 75-79 age bracket. (Participant may begin competing at age 50 with the top age category including veterans who are age 100 and older). At those games, Eichelberger’s awards were in pickleball, power walking, and corn holing.
He graduated from high school in South Charleston, Ohio, where he was a B and C student, ran track, and won no athletic awards. He was raised on a farm, where his grandparents were farmers, and no one went into military service,
Eichelberger opted to join the U.S. Marines. Why? He says, “I wanted to prove that I could do it. I wanted to be with the best.” He was trained as a radio, telegraph operator, and completed the Advanced Operators training. All the men in his Second Battalion, First Marine Unit, carried and operated radios as they swept the terrain, searching for enemies. They headed north from Da Nang to the Laotian border where they were shelled regularly; however, because of the political climate they were infrequently allowed to fire back. He reports, “This was a very dangerous place to be.
“The whole experience for me of military service was positive, but there were times I was scared to death. At times, the comradery was good. How lucky I was to not get hit or be blown up. Dozens of times I was in harm’s way; lots of times we were in the bush seeking the enemy. In the Marines, I learned quickly to keep my mouth shut and do what they told me to do. I became self-reliant. I learned to follow the rules, to never engage in nonsense, and to do the task that was presented to me.” Following his exit from the military, Eichelberger earned a degree in engineering from Ohio University where he was first in his class and worked for GE at three location for 8 years before going to dentistry school.
When he retired from dental practice in 2016, he became seriously interested in sports and he began to win awards. After reading “A Walk in the Woods” and other books on trail walking, he decided that he would walk the Appalachian Trail. So he obtained the necessary equipment and began to prepare his body.
At the end of February in 2018, he began the trek at Springer Mountain, Georgia. The first day, he walked eight miles. Most days he walked over 20 miles; one day he walked 25 miles. In the Smokies in Tennessee, he awakened one morning in a shelter (Shelters were every six to 10 miles) to a blizzard with snow one and one-half feet deep, frozen clothes, and absolutely lost with no sense of where the trail might be.
“An experienced hiker, an angel dropped out of heaven,” according to Eichelberger, and saved him.
When he completed the trail at Katahdin Mountain, Maine, in October of 2018, he had been thinking, Will I ever get there? He says, “I was so tired of walking, schlepping down mountains, being sweaty and wet, fighting mosquitos, never seeing anyone, wading rivers.” At the end, he indicates, “It was like graduating from high school. You wait and wait, and one day it’s there.”
Area veterans and friends of veterans are invited to attend Eichelberger’s presentation. Persons age 18 and older who would like to volunteer at the museum should email Dr. Vivian Blevins with your phone number: [email protected]. Experience in the military is not required.
Coffee and doughnuts, courtesy of the Miami County Veterans Service Commission, will be served at the museum beginning at 8:30 a.m. The Museum is open Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
