5 fallen veterans, including 2 brothers, honored at Iowa State's Gold Star Hall ceremony
Family members of an Iowa State University graduate who died in the line of duty and was honored by the university Monday said the presentation made them feel closer to the uncle they never knew.
Donald Wilkins earned a pre-med degree in 1946 from what was then Iowa State College, after graduating in 1940 from Ames High School. Wilkins became an anesthesiologist aboard a floating mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War but then became a patient in his own hospital after he contracted polio.
He died Oct. 6, 1950, from the disease at the age of 28, after he served two months in Korea.
Wilkins was among five fallen Iowa State students who were honored in a Gold Star Hall ceremony at Memorial Union to kickoff Veterans Week on Monday. The other former students who died in the line of duty and were honored Monday were brothers James and Ramon Davis, of Ames, Howard Medin, of Algona, and Ronald Riede, of St. Louis, Missouri.
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Sabrina Bartruff, Wilkins' niece from Cincinnati, Ohio, and Kim and Ian Borman, a niece and great-nephew from Oregon, never got to meet their family member. Hearing a detailed account of his life Monday taught them things they hadn't known before, including that Wilkins was the first person in the U.S. to receive a military scholarship for medical school. He attended the University of Iowa.
"It made him more alive," Bartruff said.
In the Davis family, three of five brothers went to Iowa State and joined the Army during World War II, including James and Ramon Davis. James graduated from Ames High School in 1936, and Ramon in 1942.
James Davis joined the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1941 and became a prisoner of war of Japanese forces in the Philippines the following year. That experience would have been brutal enough, but as American forces later advanced and the Japanese withdrew, he was put aboard what retired Capt. Paul Fuligni called a "hell ship."
Fuligni, of the U.S. Navy, who read the accounts of the brothers' lives, said the ships received the moniker from the cramped and hot conditions on board. They also carried Japanese troops and military equipment — making them targets for American planes and submarines whose crews didn't know POWs were on board.
James Davis died Dec. 15, 1944, two days after he was put on the Oryoku Maru. His cause of death is not clear — it could have been suffocation or dehydration below decks, bullets or shrapnel from attacking American planes on Dec. 14 and 15, or the bullets from Japanese troops who shot at prisoners that attempted to escape and swim ashore as the ship sank. He also could have drowned.
Unanswered — and probably unanswerable — questions were a recurring theme among soldiers' fates, including that of Ramon Davis. He studied at Iowa State for two and a half months before he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942 and was assigned to a fighter plane squadron in Britain.
Ramon Davis later flew in the Korean War and was shot down on Oct. 5, 1950. A fellow pilot saw him get out of his crashed plane and walk into the nearby forest. He was never seen again and remains unaccounted for.
No members of the Davis family were present Monday, but tables at the back of the hall displayed artifacts and information associated with those honored.
Ian Borman said his great uncle Wilkins' medical kit — its neat, professional appearance — said a lot about who he was.
"The flag really got me," Kim Borman said of the triangle-folded American flag on the table. Seeing Wilkins' Bible also meant something to her and Bartruff.
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The stories of each person whose name is among the almost 600 inscribed on the walls of Memorial Union's Gold Star Hall are available online at mu.iastate.edu/gold-star-hall.
More information about Veterans Week is available online through Iowa State's Military-Affiliated Student Center at masc.dso.iastate.edu/events-and-programs.
Ames' Veterans Day program to feature retired U.S. Navy captain
Ames Patriotic Council's Veterans Day program will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at Ames City Auditorium, 520 Sixth St.
The ceremony also will be streamed at facebook.com/amespatrioticcouncil and amespatrioticcouncil.org.
Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Duane Pitcher is the featured speaker. Pitcher is an Iowa State graduate who served as Ames' city finance director for 22 years before he retired in September.
He was commissioned as a naval officer in 1983 before serving four years on active duty and 26 years in the reserves, including assignments in Japan, the Bering Sea and Antarctica.
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Phillip Sitter covers education for the Ames Tribune, including Iowa State University and PreK-12 schools in Ames and elsewhere in Story County. Phillip can be reached via email at psitter@gannett.com. He is on Twitter @pslifeisabeauty.
This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Iowa State students who died in line of duty honored for Veterans Day
