Remembering
Richard Martin Vasko
Private First Class, United States Army
Swanton, Ohio
September 6, 1946 to February 7, 1968
Richard M Vasko is on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, panel 38E line 17.
Richard Martin Vasko was my college buddy at Ohio State. After his sophomore year, he didn't want to go to school any more and volunteered for the draft.
One night Rich and I were talking, and he mentioned how years before in school a nun had asked his class if it were true that what you don't know can't hurt you. Rich had said that wasn't true because "someone could come up behind you with a gun and kill you." Rich died in an ambush in 1968.
I spoke with his mother years later. She told me his father never got over Rich's death, and I felt her grief as well.
I will never forget my buddy, Rich Vasko.
George E Ertel, gertel@finova.com
