EGHS alumni returns to be Veterans Day guest speaker

Charlie Walker, a 1964 graduate of Eagle Grove High School, was proud to be the guest speaker at the 2017 Veterans Day Program held at Robert Blue Middle School on Friday, Nov. 10.

Walker joined the Army in October of 1968. He said he chose to enlist, rather than be drafted. While enlisting, he ran into Fred Johnston who had just graduated from EGHS. Little could they have predicted that not only did they go to boot camp together, but they would stay together (but in different specialties) throughout their enlistment. That meant a lot to Walker, to have a little piece of home with him while serving.

After basic training, Walker was sent to Fort Devens in Massachusetts, then to Maryland. When he came home to Eagle Grove for the Christmas of 1968, he returned with reports to ship to Vietnam in January, 1970. He spent 11 months there serving as part of the 175th Radio Research Company. He was trained as a cryptographic analyst - which means code-breaker. He recalled of one instance where he and his group broke a Vietcong message that they were going to bomb an artillery base at 6 p.m. the next evening. They reported it, feeling good that they had stopped the attack. However, three days later, they read that three people had been killed in the attack.

Read the full story in the November 16 edition.