U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Herreid never got a chance to return for any homecomings over the past five decades because the 1965 Moosheart graduate is among the more than 1,500 Americans still listed as MIA from the Vietnam War.
But this weekend Herreid will be remembered when a portion of Route 31 that runs past the school will be dedicated in his name at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 20, at the Batavia Moose Lodge, 1535 S. Batavia Ave.
This ceremony – just a few miles down the road from the school, where its homecoming events will also include honoring the standout athlete and student – is the latest in a series of road dedications spearheaded by Gold Star father Robert Patterson and Rolling Thunder Illinois Chapter 1 in conjunction with the Illinois Department of Transportation.
The goal, says Patterson, whose son Christopher was killed fighting in Afghanistan in 2012, is that we don’t forget those still missing or their families who have never been able to bring their loved ones home.
Statistics from the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency lists nearly 72,000 unaccounted for from World War II, around 7,500 missing from the Korean War, 1,573 from the Vietnam War and 126 from the Cold War.
Those who remain missing include U.S. Army Pvt. First Class Wayne (Sonny) WIlder Hill Jr., a West Aurora High School graduate who was killed after being taken prisoner while fighting near Taejon, South Korea, on July 20, 1950, during the Korean War, and whose remains have never been found.
IDOT put up a road sign dedicating Route 31 between Sullivan Road and Ashland Avenue in Hill’s honor on Thursday before an official dedication was scheduled, said Patterson. But it is fitting that all four local signs approved for 2025 – Army Sgt. First Class Ogden Thompson of Aurora and Army Sgt. First Class Theodore Katsoolias of West Chicago were previously honored – are in place before Friday, Sept. 19, which is National POW/MIA Recognition Day, which will feature events around the country including a ceremony by the city of Aurora from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday at Veterans Island Park.
Saturday’s road dedication for Herreid will coincide with the homecoming at Mooseheart, where he and his siblings were raised after the death of their father. Only 9 years old when he arrived from North Dakota, young Bobby thrived at this Child City, not only academically but in music, drama, track, basketball and football.
Mooseheart, which has inducted the missing soldier in its Athletic Hall of Fame and named him as a Distinguished Alumni, will honor him in a separate ceremony Saturday morning, said Executive Director Gary Urwiler, who as a former resident there remembers how revered Bobby’s name was at the school, even among leaders including the late Bob Zaininger, a former coach and executive director at Mooseheart who was also a 1965 classmate.
Talented and good-looking, what really made this kid so popular, say those who knew him best, was just how kind and caring he was to all who came into contact with him. And that hometown hero legacy only grew after Herreid enlisted in the Army and became a demolition expert with special forces but turned down a chance to stay in the United States as a trainer because he wanted to go where the fight was.
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In July of 1968 he arrived in Vietnam. Three months later, the 21-year-old soldier was reported missing in action in the Chau Doc Province of South Vietnam, and on Jan. 30, 1974, was declared officially dead by the U.S. government.
The All-American boy who seemed to have it all never got a marker or proper burial, a fact that still haunts those who loved him, including sister-in-law Melody Herreid, whose late husband Wally, though two years older, idolized his kid brother Bobby.
Melody Herreid, who lived in Plano before moving to Tennessee five years ago, plans to attend Saturday’s road dedication, as will a number of Bobby’s friends and classmates, some of whom have spent time and effort researching their friend’s final life chapter.
As I mentioned in a 2017 column about Herreid, the narrative behind his death is a mixture of fact, speculation and myth, all compounded by the “fog of war.” According to multiple official documents, Herreid and his group were advancing up the Nui Coto mountain slope on a search and clear mission with a mobile strike force when they ran into a hostile unit.
After Bobby was hit – a Cambodian radio operator saw him get struck in the chest or stomach and fall to the ground, but another report said he was hit in the temple and last seen lying by a mangrove tree – a dozen air strikes were put into the area, however, friendly troops could not conduct a search because of the intense fighting.
When the area was secured, his body was gone. Several attempts were made to locate the remains, including in 1974 when a villager took a U.S. investigator to the spot in question, according to official documents. A report from the Joint Task Resolution Center indicates villagers were ordered to bury the body near a certain pagoda, which has prompted repeated calls for another search of that area.
But time is running out, says his sister-in-law, who can’t help but wonder what this patriotic and kind young hero would think about the divisiveness of our country today.
“It would make him sad,” she told me.
While Bobby grew up in an era polarized by social unrest and an unpopular war, “he was always so nice, so compatible.
“Everyone,” she added, “would want him as their neighbor.”