Nearing Ceasefire, Vietnam War Claimed U.S. Soldier
Editor’s note—This feature first appeared on Oconto Electric Cooperative’s local pages in this magazine last November. We thought the article should be shared with our general readership as a Veterans Day tribute. It was authored by Oconto Electric’s member services representative, Pam Langlay,)
End of a War, Not the Conflict
Though Time magazine’s 1973 article (cited above) about the “last hours of the Vietnam War” might now seem premature to those of us who remember those years, official government documents record Bill Nolde as the last American casualty of the Vietnam War. That’s because after the ceasefire prescribed by the Paris Peace Accord became effective at midnight January 27, 1973, the U.S. government could technically no longer regard the conflict in Vietnam as “war.” Two weeks before the ceasefire, President Nixon had announced that the military’s offensive operations had stopped. Of course, the hostilities—claiming 12,000 more Americans—continued until Saigon finally fell in April 1975, but they occurred as official U.S. policy shifted to support defensive operations bolstering South Vietnam’s army.
On Monday, February 5, 1973, Time magazine reported: “The last hours of the Vietnam War took a cruel human toll. Communist and South Vietnamese casualties ran into the thousands. Four U.S. airmen joined the missing-in-action list when their two aircraft were downed on the last day. Another four Americans were known to have been killed—including Lieut. Colonel William B. Nolde, 43, of Mt. Pleasant, Mich., who was cut down in an artillery barrage at An Loc only eleven hours before the ceasefire. He was the 45,941st American to have died by enemy action in Vietnam since 1961.”
All Too Real
Startled, Joyce Nolde awoke the evening of Saturday, January 27, 1973, from a vivid dream about her husband being in an explosion. She later told a reporter, “I dreamed that a rocket came in and hit him and he said, ‘Don’t worry honey, I’ll be okay.’ The blast woke me up.” The dream was so real to her that in the morning she told her children they should prepare in case of bad news.
It came.
Half a world away, 60 miles north of Saigon in Vietnam’s Binh Long Province, Senior Military Advisor Bill Nolde had been speaking with his Vietnamese counterpart about how to get the country moving again when the rocket hit his bunker. It happened at about the same time as Joyce’s nightmare.
"I knew he was dead," she said. "It was not like a dream at all. It was something we always had between us. We always knew what the other was doing. We joked we couldn't sneak around because the other would know."
Legacy of Love
Since Veteran’s Day is November 11, it seems this is a fitting time of year to talk about how wars and military conflicts affect all of us.
Lt. Colonel William B. Nolde was the father of Oconto Electric Cooperative CEO Byron C. Nolde. Byron knows as well as anyone how war can change your life—it caused him to grow up without a father.
Byron allowed me to look through his memorabilia of the time when his father died. There were many glowing tributes to the kind of person he was. Byron’s older brother, Blair, was quoted saying, “My father’s life revolved around three principles—God, country, and family, in that order. Each in turn would take care of the other. By putting God first he never did injustice to the others.”
One of the things that impressed me most was that every article and letter written about Lt. Colonel Nolde talked about his love of the Vietnamese people. Not only did he immerse himself in their culture, he could speak their language fluently. Military personnel serving with Bill Nolde said when not on duty he would be out in the countryside encouraging and helping the Vietnamese people to begin rebuilding their lives. At the time of his death, he was working with a priest to get the local church rebuilt. He clearly did not see his military service as a combat service, but as a way to help the people.
Although Bill lived all over the world throughout his military career, his hometown was Menominee, Michigan. After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from Central Michigan University, he taught at a country elementary school until he was drafted into the Korean War. This is when he decided to make the military a career. Bill Nolde worked his way through the ranks and was posthumously made a full colonel.
Losing a Father
I asked Byron what he felt when he learned his father had been killed. Without having to think about his answer, he said, “The thing I still remember most clearly is the last time I was with my dad. I was helping him fix a pump in our barn and he said that he noticed I was the one always willing to help with things like that and that if anything ever happened to him, I would be the one who would have to step up and take care of Mom and our home. My first thought in hearing about my father’s death was that now was my time to step up. I stood next to my mother throughout the funeral and always tried to be what my father expected of me. At 13, I suddenly wasn’t a kid anymore.”
It is also clear from everything published about the Nolde family that everyone was proud of Bill Nolde and the job he loved doing. Joyce was often quoted as saying, “People ask me if I’m bitter that Bill died during the last few hours of the war, but I’m not bitter. My husband was simply doing what he wanted to do.” In one interview she went on to say, “He was a very, very sensitive man who cared a great deal about people.”
Taps and Tributes
As with many who had given their lives during the war, Byron’s father was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. The ceremony even included Black Jack, the horse that nine years earlier solemnly brought up the rear of President Kennedy’s funeral procession.
Col. Nolde’s standing as the last American to die before the peace treaty’s ceasefire took effect accorded his family some special attention. Joyce and the children flew to Virginia on Air Force One and met President Nixon while they were there for the funeral. Byron remembers being in the Oval Office and meeting the president. A photo of that meeting, signed by Nixon, hangs in Byron’s office at Oconto Electric Co-op.
“Even though President Nixon’s people told us we would only have a few minutes with him, he was very cordial and sincere and didn’t rush us at all,” he said.
Byron went on to say, “If there is one thing I learned from my father’s death, it’s to live the things you believe in because you never know when it will be too late. If you don’t like something in your life, change it.”
Byron is very proud of his father and of his mother, who kept the family together after his father was gone. The Noldes had five children ranging from 19 to 12 years old at the time of Bill’s death. (Byron is the second to the youngest and was 13 at the time.) The Noldes had high ideals and expected the same of their children—that didn’t change when the family patriarch died.
The Nolde children are grown with children and in some cases grandchildren of their own. I had the opportunity to meet Mrs. Nolde once when she visited OEC. You could see the deep respect going both ways between mother and son. At age 74, Joyce Nolde went to be with her husband. She rests by him at Arlington National Cemetery.
Thank you to all the military people currently serving our country and to all the veterans who have served. Our world certainly wouldn’t be the same without you.—Pam Langlay, Member Services Representative, Oconto Electric Cooperative
It hasn’t always been this way, but improving technologies and smarter applications have made electric home heating a highly efficient choice—in many cases the most efficient—especially for people who are building new homes.
That’s quite a contrast compared with the 1980s, when state government judged it a policy imperative to discourage electricity use for space heating. So serious was the opposition to electric space heating in those days, the Wisconsin state budget bill for 1983–85 was amended to make it illegal to build an electrically heated residence unless it met a “superinsulation” requirement. And while we can’t claim to know if this was the intent, the fact that “superinsulation” was never defined—either by law or in the administrative rules the law brought into being—certainly did nothing to inspire people to take a chance on meeting the requirement.
What it did accomplish was to make anyone who really, really wanted electric heat operate in a take-no-chances mode, sealing things up to the point that in 2005 a well-established Wisconsin home builder estimated that avoiding regulatory trouble added roughly two dollars per square foot to the cost of a new home.
More than a year before that estimate was offered, the Wisconsin Electric Cooperative Association (WECA) was already engaged in a concerted effort to get state government to catch up with the progress in electric heating efficiency.
Long Road to Reality
Early in 2004, the WECA approached the Wisconsin Department of Commerce—the agency with responsibility for building code enforcement—about possible administrative rule changes to recognize the stellar improvements in electric heating efficiency.
Since the initial burst of enthusiasm for electric heat almost 50 years ago, things had changed completely. Back then, baseboard units consisting of glass-covered printed circuits were subject to frequent breakage and replacement as they succumbed to heat stress. They were far cleaner than the oil- or coal-burning furnaces they supplanted in most homes, but that was pretty much the extent of their virtues.
Today’s systems bear no resemblance to those 1960s relics. Heat pumps maximize the use of warmth drawn from the ground and can have efficiency ratios as high as three-to-one in terms of heat produced versus electricity consumed.
A ground-source heat pump can be backed up with a 100-percent efficient electric thermal storage (ETS) unit. These use high-density ceramic bricks to collect and store heat produced by electricity generated at off-peak hours or whenever demand is lowest. The stored heat can be used when it’s needed without stressing utility generation capacity.
Trouble was, these super-efficient systems were burdened by Wisconsin administrative rules that could almost be summed up in a single, three-word sentence: “Use natural gas.” Some efficiency devices developed over the past couple of decades weren’t recognized at all and some that were got no advantage because the state’s computer software did not properly credit the efficiency of any system that wasn’t based on natural gas.
As this magazine noted almost four years ago, rules supposedly written to ensure energy efficiency were methodically making it more difficult to use efficient technologies. Ironically, of all energy producers, only the electric power industry is required by law to obtain a percentage of its output from renewable sources. Wisconsin residents using the only home-heating source that’s mandated to have a renewable component were being penalized for that choice.
Doubling the irony, it’s unlikely the legislative decision to discourage use of electric heat had any measurable effect on Wisconsin’s energy consumption in the 1980s, but 20 years later that policy choice was having an effect, and it was the opposite of the one supposedly intended.
Once approached by the WECA, Commerce Department officials recognized that things had changed and expressed willingness to consider rule changes, and to examine software problems that systematically underestimated the efficiency of electric systems.
By the summer of 2005, WECA was pursuing a dual strategy, continuing to work with the Commerce Department for rule changes but also devising legislation to repeal the superinsulation requirement.
One participant at a 2005 strategy conference in Madison noted that the efficiency gains in electric heat made it more sensible to have a superinsulation requirement for homes heated with natural gas than for those using electricity.
Still, it took until March 2008 for a repeal bill to pass the Legislature. It was adopted in both houses on voice votes, with no dissent heard, but even then there remained a bit of controversy to be wrung out of the issue.
In July of that year it was learned that additional months would pass before changes reflecting the Legislature’s action would go into effect. The proposed administrative rule revisions carrying out the repeal persisted in assuming electric heating systems were less efficient than those using natural gas, propane, or fuel oil. Specifically, the rule changes prescribed use of software that didn’t recognize the efficiency of geothermal systems. WECA asked for software revisions before the rule change would become effective.
The Breakthrough
It took more than an additional year, but finally this fall, a new version of the “REScheck” software used by the state to determine code compliance was complete. This closed the loop, completing the succession of changes set in motion more than five years ago and realized beginning in 2008.
WECA Government Affairs Director Beata Kalies noted that many people within and outside the co-op community “worked hard for several years to change the law and gain parity for electrically heated systems.”
She explained that the old administrative rule didn’t specify whether the superinsulation requirement meant using “more insulation than 20 years ago or more insulation than one would need for a different heat source.” Even after that obstacle was cleared, she said, “the software actually used by home inspectors to verify a design’s code compliance at best treated electric heat as if it was a 78-percent efficient gas furnace!”
Now with the law changed, the administrative rules changed, and the software changed, homeowners have a better chance to take advantage of the cleanliness and efficiency offered by electric space heating.
When the new version of REScheck is used, electric heat is treated as equivalent to a 90-percent efficient natural gas furnace. It’s not perfect and may still undervalue the efficiency of modern electrical systems, but Kalies says she and others who have been close to the issue for years think it’s the best that’s likely to be achieved. Moreover, she notes, in special circumstances homeowners, builders, and inspectors are also able to use alternate compliance methods.
An emergency rule issued by the Department of Commerce went into effect September 5, directing inspectors to use the updated software.
Want to Conserve? Use Electricity
This past summer, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) released a study that helps put in perspective just how much things have changed in recent years. Switching from fossil-fueled technologies to electricity for space and water heating in residential, commercial, and industrial settings could add up to big savings in overall energy use, the EPRI study said.
Supplanting fossil-fueled, end-use technologies with efficient electric units would have the potential to save a cumulative 72 quadrillion Btu between now and 2030, according to EPRI. The study cited oil furnaces and natural gas water heaters as prime candidates for replacement with electric equipment.
The analysis identified two key mechanisms for energy savings: straight substitution of electric technologies for fossil-fueled ones, both existing and planned, and upgrading existing electric end-use technologies through retrofits or replacements.
Residential applications showed the greatest potential for energy savings, EPRI said, adding that expanding end-use applications of electricity could cut expected growth of U.S. energy consumption between 10 and 32 percent by 2030.—Dave Hoopman
It somehow feels wrong. This is the first time in 258 consecutive issues of this publication that Linda Hilton’s name hasn’t appeared either in the masthead or a byline. For 21-1/2 years she’s been part of the monthly design, composition, and production tasks essential to this communication for members of Wisconsin’s electric cooperatives.
That came to a sudden and surprising end September 30 when we received word Linda had died after a couple of days in hospice care. She was 68. Adrenal failure, her husband, Dan, told me. It was likely among the only times the term “failure” was ever attached to Linda.
With irrepressible humor, wordsmithing skill, and an eye for detail, Linda Hilton helped guide this and other Wisconsin statewide electric co-op publications through a host of communications challenges for almost 14 years, and even after retiring to New Mexico in 2000, she continued supplying WEC News readers with member features and “Wisconsin Favorites,” our monthly travelogue of in-state attractions.
Friend, Colleague, Mentor
Hired as associate editor of Wisconsin REC News in 1988, Linda brought years of experience writing and designing for print, gained after graduating from Kansas State in 1962. Notably, she was also a book editor in Chicago, including a stint working for best-selling author John Naisbitt.
REC News Field Editor Mary Erickson and I—both of us graduates of UW schools of journalism—soon came to realize that our academic and professional deeds didn’t stack up so well against the grammatical prowess of our brightly attired office mate. Linda schooled us: proper use of em dashes and en dashes (things we’d never heard of), wording, punctuation, and assorted odd turns to the English language. She eased us into being persnickety when it came to the printed word. And though it might sound dreary to some, we relished arguing and analyzing how best to turn a phrase and apply semicolons in the right places. And Linda wasn’t one to lose such arguments.
So much of her know-how went into setting our magazine style that as I compose and edit these very words, I find myself unconsciously referencing, “How would Linda have done this?”
Making Deadline
After taking a course in PageMaker in the fall of 1988, Linda within a few months convinced us we could produce REC News using a desktop computer, gaining control over a time-consuming, imprecise publishing process. Prompted by Linda, we made the technological leap. She later poured countless hours into the project that in 1994 advanced our publication from its traditional newspaper format to a color magazine. She got things done and, in true production-journalism fashion, when they were needed.
It was therefore wistfully consistent that Dan Hilton’s recent call telling me Linda had been hospitalized for 10 days wasn’t as much about imparting that information as it was conveying Linda’s regrets and frustration at not being able to meet our November “Wisconsin Favorites” deadline. A scant four days later, she was gone. I plodded along with text for that feature, but my words somehow lacked Linda’s perpetually uplifting tone.
Impeccably color-coordinated and bejeweled, Linda was as stylish as she was outgoing. In attire or other outward expressions, one colleague observed, she never went for neutral. And so, Linda made her mark.
As we might have expected, the imprint was neither muted nor drab.
The Korean War claimed more than 36,500 American lives and inflicted wounds on three times that number during its three-year span from June 1950 to July 1953. Wisconsin military personnel were among those casualties: 801 killed in action, 4,286 wounded, 111 prisoners of war (54 of whom died in POW camps), and 84 still officially listed as missing in action. In all, 132,000 Badger State residents served in the war.
Yet the Korean War continues to be refereed to as “The Forgotten War” or “The Unknown War.” In fact, due to there not being a conventional declaration by Congress, its official designation isn’t even “war.” It’s called a “police action” or more generically a “conflict.”
The three years of fighting on the Korean peninsula essentially ended in a stalemate. Despite the fact that U.S. and United Nations forces succeeded in helping save South Korea from being overrun, not achieving a crushing military win—like in World War II just eight years earlier—perhaps diminished popular perception of the war.
Whatever the reasons, a Wisconsin organization has worked to ensure the Korean War will not be “forgotten by all but those who served.”
In central Wisconsin, visible from I-39 at Plover, stands the Wisconsin Korean War Veterans Memorial, a tribute to Wisconsinites who fought, died, or are still missing as a result of the war. Developed through volunteer efforts and the ongoing support of the Korean War Veterans Memorial Association of Wisconsin, the memorial was first dedicated in 1994 and this past spring was re-dedicated following an extensive reconstruction project.
Built on a small island in Lake Pacawa, the memorial features a series of larger-than-life bronze statues as its centerpiece. The figures, standing in a row facing east, represent the various U.S. armed forces that took part in the war, though none carries a weapon, recognizing that peace is the fervent hope of all veterans. Adjacent to the statues are stone walls with inscriptions, including several made up of hundreds of tiles offered by individuals to commemorate the service of their loved ones, friends, or comrades.
Memorial tiles can be purchased from the veterans association, and the funds are used for perpetual care of the memorial. Other funding for construction and maintenance has come from volunteer contributions, matching state grants, donations by the Village of Plover, and sales of memorabilia at the annual program held at the memorial each June.
To get to the site, take Exit 153 off I-39, turning west onto County B toward Plover. At the first set of traffic lights, turn left on Village Park Drive and then left again on Maple Drive. The island memorial connects to Worzella Pines Park by a pedestrian causeway called the “Isle of Honor” walkway. Behind the memorial on the tiny island is a small park where visitors can relax and take in the peaceful surroundings. The memorial is open until 11 p.m. daily.
As the 60-year anniversary of the Korean War approaches in 2010, help keep the service of thousands of veterans from being associated with a “forgotten war.” Take time to honor their contributions with a visit to the Wisconsin Korean War Veterans Memorial.—Perry Baird
For more information about the memorial or on how to purchase commemorative tiles, go to www.koreanmemorial.org or contact KWVMAW (Korean War Veterans Memorial Association of Wisconsin), 554 Tyrolian Dr., Green Bay, WI 54302-5140.
