Veteran booked on Honor Flight

RITZVILLE – When Lamar Thiel's ancestors homesteaded here after trudging thousands of miles on the Oregon trail, they couldn't have guessed that one of their descendants would one day fly in the opposite direction.

In early October, Thiel will travel east to Washington, D.C. on an "Honor Flight" celebrating veterans who served during "recognized periods of conflict." In Thiel's case, that "recognized period" was the inception of America's involvement in Vietnam.

"I married my high school classmate in June 1960 and by December was headed for the draft," he recalled. "I later learned I was the first married person to be drafted in Adams County since the Korean War."

He completed Army basic training in Fort Ord, Calif., then headed to Augusta, Ga., for communications school where he became a teletype operator for the signal corps.

Thiel and his new bride stayed in Georgia for 10 weeks.

"The way the signal corps worked," he said. "The Army would move everybody in a particular class. If you're going to Korea, for instance, all 15 people go to Korea.

"On that rotation, I got a staff infection and was in the hospital for several days. So, I missed my group's rotation."

After Georgia, Thiel served for three years at Fort Lewis where his team supported the Army's war games in Georgia, California, Alaska and elsewhere.

At one point, his team worked outside Eielson Air Force Base, southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska.

"It was 42 below and we were in tents," he said. "You could wash your t-shirt, take it outside, hold it in front of you, and within seconds it would be stiff."

In Alaska, the infantry was testing new cold-weather gear. In California, Thiel's team supported infantry in the desert.

Many of those soldiers would deploy to Vietnam.

"I liked working in Fort Lewis. We could come home on weekends," he recalled.

He found that "if you volunteer, the sergeants and officers treat you a whole lot nicer than if you always 'buck' everything. The more you help, the better you're treated."

Thiel remembers a time when sergeants sought volunteers and he was the only soldier who could handle a stick-shift. So he taught soldiers how to drive jeeps and trucks.

"The motor pool was built next to an abandoned road," he said. "I drove back and forth on that road, maybe a third of a mile. It was 'jerk jerk, stop stop, grind grind' until they could do it reasonably well."

When his service time was up, a captain asked him about reenlisting.

"No, I don't want to," Thiel said. "I have a farm to take care of."

Thiel recalled the captain saying, "Between you and me, I would get out because it's gonna get a lot worse before it gets better."

"So, I came home," he said, "and went back to farming."

He and his wife raised two children, and Thiel later went to work for the local school district in groundskeeping and maintenance. He also taught industrial arts for five years, including welding and small engine repair.

Thiel is clearly proud of his two children. His son Bradley lives in Albany, N.Y., and teaches physics to graduate students. Bradley earned a doctorate at University of Washington and was invited to go to Cambridge, England, where he stayed nine years.

"You don't apply to go to Cambridge. They invite you," Thiel said.

His daughter Nichole taught in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, for about 17 years and now she's managing The Bronco Inn in Ritzville.

She came here to help her mother, Karen Mae (Arlt) Thiel, who passed away last year from complications related to Lewy Body dementia.

Thiel is also a skilled and innovative artist. He started creating metal sculptures when the local Lion's club asked him to make a "Welcome to Ritzville" sign. From that start, he began designing and fabricating complex metal statues around town. The Plow Boy, Albert "Bert" Kendrick, the bucking Bronco outside LRS High School, the Covered Wagon on Railroad Avenue, and the Bell Tower - all are his creations.

Thiel took industrial arts classes in high school, but most of his skills are self-taught. "If I can visualize it, I can probably make it," he said.

His favorite creations? The Covered Wagon and the Bronco. The wagon was created to honor his ancestors who homesteaded here in 1883. "I built the wagon sculpture from plans a curator gave me," he said.

"That wagon is the actual size of covered wagons that came here on the Oregon Trail."

"I like the Bronco (at LRS high school) because it represents the kids," he said. When the local Bronco Boosters club asked him to create a statue of the school's mascot, he was initially reluctant. "I'm not a horse person," he said. "God invented motorbikes so you don't have to ride horses."

But he took up the challenge.

After laboring hundreds of hours, he created the iconic statue now standing outside the school's front doors.

Scrutinize Thiel's work and you just might find a metal insect lurking somewhere.

"The one most people miss is on Burt Kendrick," he said.

"It's a grasshopper."