Leroy Myrick: Army veteran known as community's 'go-to guy'

Nov. 6—Leroy Myrick, at age 74, has come to know Uncle Sam fairly well over the course of the past 55 years, serving in a variety of roles both in Aiken County and halfway around the world.

The Aiken native, in his Army years, wound up receiving a Purple Heart in the wake of a mortar attack in Vietnam, where he reached the rank of sergeant en route to a career that included more than 30 years at the Savannah River Site.

Longtime friend Audrey Ogletree chose the phrase "really warm and welcoming" to describe him, recalling their initial contact as she came to know Aiken largely through her work at SRS and also involvement at Friendship Baptist Church, where both are members.

He completed his work at the nuclear reservation in 2011, having begun as a janitor and moved on to work in accounting and human resources, with help from a bachelor's degree in accounting from the former Augusta College.

"I went to school. Then I went into accounting. Then I wound up, the last 15 years ... in human resources," he recalled, noting that one of his co-workers was Lessie Price, largely known for her decades as an Aiken City Council member.

"Leroy worked for me ... and did a fantastic job," Price recalled. She noted that "one of the things that stands out with Leroy is his candor and ... the ease you can have in having a conversation with him."

She credited him with a strong work ethic, and added, "Our personalities worked out really well, as employee to manager."

His upward mobility, once he set his mind on changing careers, was quick. "Leroy has always wanted to expand his reach to help others, and to this very day, he is constantly looking for ways to help people and improve their lifestyle, reduce their financial burden and improve their families' environment," Price said.

"He's a very honest man, and if you don't want to know the truth, don't ask Leroy. If you really want to know what the community is thinking, Leroy is the guy that has ... a grassworks network with the community, and he's the go-to guy."

Retired educator James Gallman, known to some for his NAACP leadership at the local and state level, made similar comments. "He is a very funny guy to be around. In my opinion, he loves people, and ... I call him, a lot of times, the chairman of the street," Gallman said, acknowledging that Myrick tends to have a good feel for local residents' concerns and priorities.

Over the years, Myrick also became a leader of the local NAACP — an organization in which he holds a life membership — and can now reflect on an upbringing that included a childhood in racially segregated Aiken schools followed by college years in integrated schools.

His family roots are local, with his mom (one of nine kids) and dad (an only child) having grown up in Oakwood and Allendale, respectively.

Myrick noted that his father had planned to head north in October 1930, for better job opportunities. "He got to Aiken one day and turned 18 the next day ... He was on his way, but then his mother came up here, and he didn't want her to think that he was running off leaving her, so he wound up staying. I told him, 'I'm sorry you didn't make it to New York, but I'm sure glad you left Allendale.'"

Myrick's current roles include serving as treasurer of Umoja Village, described on its website as "a South Carolina-based charitable organization, that encompasses a strategic alliance of Blacks and African Americans united with a common goal: To unify underserved populations and the entire community to bring about positive and sustainable change."

"I think he is a friend to everyone and a stranger to no one," said Joyie Bradley, who has known Myrick for decades, as a fellow trustee of Friendship Baptist and former co-worker at SRS.

"He's very outgoing, friendly and helpful to everybody he meets," Bradley said. "He never meets a stranger."

He did, however, get plenty of unwelcome attention as a teenager overseas.

Myrick recalled his days as a recent graduate of Schofield High School, with university studies on his mind. "I went to Tennessee State, in Nashville, for a year, and I stayed out a semester, and my daddy told me, 'Uncle Sam's gonna get you,' and sure enough."

It happened. Myrick's number came up, and he was Army-bound, by way of southeastern Virginia. Eventually, he would get acquainted with a place known as "Rocket City."

"They told me that I took an extra year to try to keep from going to Vietnam, and there was 45 in my class that graduated in Fort Lee, Virginia. There were two of us — me and another guy — in that class that went to Vietnam."

In Myrick's case, that meant the Tay Ninh combat base, in a hilly area near the Cambodian border.

"I went in the Army August 26, 1968. I landed in South Vietnam January 24, 1969 — two days from being five months from the time I went in the Army, I was in the Army in Vietnam, at 19."

His role was primarily in keeping supplies moving in the right direction. "I was like a stock control and accounting specialist ... I was a lead clerk," he said.

"I wasn't in the field, but we issued supplies like boots — all of that kind of stuff."

A highly unwelcome arrival resulted in the end of Myrick's military days. "I was working in the building, and a mortar — we had a rocket attack — came in the building and hit me in the leg ... That's how I got wounded."

It was a familiar concept for Myrick. "They were throwing them in there every night, and what they called it ... was Rocket City, because as soon as the sun went down, they sent them rockets in there."

He and his compatriots were "like sitting ducks," dealing with the enemy's system of elaborate tunnels used for everything from hit-and-run attacks to food caches, communication routes and living quarters. He noted that his injuries came 35 days after he arrived in Vietnam.

"It's hard to beat a man in his own back yard," Myrick recalled. "He's got all his stuff there."

Myrick's injuries were successfully treated in Cambodia, and he was then shipped stateside in 1970, arriving in San Francisco, a center of hippie culture and strong anti-war sentiment. "They basically called us baby-killers and all kinds of stuff."

By that point, Myrick was 20 — still too young to engage legally in some aspects of nightlife, so he immediately acquired a fake I.D. and then found club doors open to him.

Decades later, opening other kinds of doors has become one of Myrick's favorite pursuits. He was hired at SRS — known then as the Savannah River Plant — in 1973, and came to focus more and more on helping others acquire good jobs.

'That's one of the things I like to do now," he confirmed. "I help people try to get jobs at Savannah River Site, because they're needing so many people out there."

"He's close to my family, and I'm close to his family," Price said. "He is a good and decent servant, as is his entire family — just really a great example for this community."

Myrick confirmed that family activities help him stay active. He and his wife, Theresa, a retired cosmetologist, have a family tree that now includes three sons, two daughters, 15 grandchildren and three great-grands. "I work for Uber, but I'm an unpaid Uber driver," the father of the house noted, with a chuckle.

He added that the family's official enterprises also include a pair of Richland Avenue establishments: Bettis Package Shop and (a few steps away) a club known to many as The Ponderosa, and more recently known as Chemistry's Tapas & Tonics.

The topic of candor and honesty also came up, with regard to the younger generations of Myricks. "I always tell them the truth, whether they like it or not."

He also laughed in recalling a lesson he offered one morning years ago for one of his sons whom he caught in an effort to conceal having been out overnight, instead of sleeping at home.

"I went right out the front door and felt the hood of the car. I said, 'You just got here. You can't be pulling them fool games on me.' I told them, 'Most of that stuff that y'all are doing, I invented it.'"