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St. Joseph native Robert ‘Casey’ Casebolt is the chairman for the Joint Veterans Committee that plans services for Memorial Day at the Civic Center Park.

Everyone calls Robert Casebolt by his nickname, Casey. He just calls himself lucky.

The St. Joseph man served in the Air Force and retired after 20 years. He counts the 20 years as a blessing. He walked away from the service intact.

Not a day goes by that Mr. Casebolt doesn’t think about those who never got his chance.

The black-and-white picture shows a young Marine in dress blues. It sits in the living room of his mother’s South Side home.

Casey shows the photograph of his brother, Henry Casebolt. Henry was as squared-away as a Marine gets, a leader of the sort the Corps brags about.

“He was at Camp Pendleton training troops to go to Vietnam,” Casey remembers. “He got tired of getting death reports back from them over there, so he said, ‘I’m going.’”

He went in 1965. On Feb. 28, 1966, a Viet Cong battalion engaged Henry’s company in the Thua Thien province. A battle narrative described the corporal, under enemy fire, crossing a 70-meter rice paddy to destroy a mortar position. Even after suffering wounds, he “continued to direct his squad’s fire by pinpointing the enemy.”

The wording comes from the citation awarding Cpl. Casebolt the Navy Cross. It was a posthumous honor. The 24-year-old died in that rice paddy.

On the Vietnam Memorial Wall, his name appears on Panel 05E, Line 84.

Casey Casebolt knows the hurt of brothers, literal and extended, and sisters dying while in service to their nation. Because they didn’t survive, he helps in their stead.

“Not only have I lost my brother but I have lost a lot of friends,” the St. Joseph veteran says. “With me retiring after 20 years healthy, that has gotten me involved in the military more because of the people who are not so lucky.”

Mr. Casebolt chairs the local Joint Veterans Committee, a confederation of groups that plans a memorial and rededication service at Civic Center Park Monday. The committee also puts together POW/MIA commemorations in September and Veterans Day parades and dinners in November.

Memorial Day brings its special observance, with wreaths laid, taps played and rifles fired in salute. The holiday pays tribute to sacrifice made for a cause greater than self.

As the service’s program runs out of his printer, Mr. Casebolt says he lends a hand because he can.

Born in St. Joseph in a house just across from the old Floyd School, Casey went looking for work after his high school graduation in 1961. The military draft made companies hesitant to train young men they might lose to the service. It made for a tough job search.

“I thought I would go in the Air Force, get my commitment over with, and then I would come back to St. Joe and start my civilian career,” he recalls. “I got in there, and I liked it.”

That was in April 1962, a year after his older brother enlisted in the Marines. His service took him to Bentwater Air Force Base in England. The Air Force cut him orders for Vietnam, but his brother’s death exempted him from time in a war zone. He hoped for a posting near Missouri so he could help his mother and father. Instead, he got stationed in Ethiopia.

Mr. Casebolt would have extended his Air Force career but for his dad’s illness. He came back to St. Joseph in 1982, and his father died in 1984. “I made the right decision,” the veteran says.

He became a member of the American Legion, the VFW and American War Dads. The Joints Veterans Committee, which he has chaired for 10 years, coordinates the local military observances but also spearheaded an effort to get a Disabled American Veterans van to drive St. Joseph veterans to the VA hospital in Leavenworth, Kan.

Mr. Casebolt drove the van twice a week for seven years. He still goes to the military nursing home in Leavenworth monthly to run a bingo game and socialize with the residents.

The veteran believes the work an extension of what he signed on for 47 years ago.

“I left the military,” he says, “but I would say the military hasn’t left me.”

Ken Newton can be reached at kenn@npgco.com.