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Invoice Benn was midway by his junior yr at West Virginia Institute of Expertise when the cash ran out. Somewhat than give up faculty altogether, the Lakewood Excessive Faculty graduate took a go away to work full-time for the West Virginia Division of Transportation.
The plan was to work for a yr and save sufficient to complete his diploma in civil engineering.
This was 1968. By leaving faculty, Invoice grew to become eligible for the draft. Positive sufficient, a draft discover got here that June.
A yr later, on June 6, 1969, Benn was killed in Vietnam. He was 22 years previous.
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On Saturday, 53 years after his loss of life, Invoice Benn’s educational journey is coming full circle. West Virginia Tech is awarding him a posthumous diploma. Benn’s 5 surviving siblings will settle for the diploma on the college’s graduation ceremony.
“Alongside the best way we’ve all made our peace and realized to dwell with the lack of Invoice,” brother Jerry Benn stated. “By no means would we have now thought, as a result of a lot time had handed, that something like this might occur. It’s the kind of factor the place you simply fall out of your chair.”
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‘An all-around nice man’
Invoice Benn grew up in a big, working-class household. Each dad and mom had served in World Warfare II; his mom was an Military nurse. At a younger age he was recognized with a tumor in his chest; surgical procedure left him with an enormous scar and power shortness of breath.
Neither prevented him from changing into a high athlete. He and his brother Vince have been a part of the inaugural Lakewood Excessive wrestling staff, in 1962. Invoice went on to star within the 114-pound weight class and was named “Most Athletic” by his friends within the Class of 1965.
“He was fearless,” Jerry Benn stated.
“An all-around nice man,” youngest brother Paul Benn stated. “Everybody favored him.”
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A mentor at Lakewood Excessive, soccer coach Edwin Brandt, helped steer him to West Virginia Tech (from which Brandt had graduated). Invoice saved sufficient to pay for the primary yr, then acquired a part-time job doing civil engineering work with West Virginia’s Division of Transportation to cowl the subsequent year-and-a-half.
When the draft discover got here, Vince Benn stated, Invoice determined to enlist within the Marines with the assumption that he can be assigned to engineering work. He wound up within the infantry as an alternative and was killed in a mortar assault.
“They (the army) have been in search of cannon fodder,” stated Vince Benn, who additionally served in Vietnam with the 82nd Airborne. “There is no such thing as a different technique to describe that.”
Invoice was considered one of 58,220 People killed within the Vietnam Warfare.
“I keep in mind the look on mother’s face the day Saigon fell and the battle ended,” brother Tom Benn recalled. “It was so miserable that she misplaced her son for no motive in any respect. She was completely deflated.”
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A serendipitous dialog
Quick-forward 5 many years. Invoice’s sister, Rita Benn Yhlen, is a nurse who works in a Florida hospital. In the future, detecting an accent in a fellow nurse’s voice, Rita requested the colleague about her origins. Reply: West Virginia.
“One in every of my brothers went to West Virginia Tech,” Rita instructed her.
“So did considered one of my brothers,” replied the colleague, Rachel Hatfield.
So Rita instructed her Invoice’s story, which Rachel handed alongside to her brother, Class of 1981 West Virginia Tech grad Dean Hatfield. Turned out, Dean additionally majored in civil engineering. He additionally belonged to the identical fraternity chapter as Invoice, Sigma Phi Epsilon.
“Dean Hatfield was very touched by the story of Billy,” Rita stated.
With an undergraduate enrollment of 1,800, West Virginia Tech is an intimate place. Dean Hatfield reached out to people within the college’s administration, and inside days the plan was in place to award a posthumous diploma.
“This was a no brainer for us,” stated Jen Wooden, West Virginia Tech’s director of college relations. “It’s very humbling that we get a possibility to do that for the household and to acknowledge Invoice. The response we’ve acquired from the household, and in addition from the alumni who knew Invoice and who’re concerned with Dean, as a fellow alumnus of Tech it makes me very proud.”
Wooden stated this would be the first posthumous diploma conferred by the college in latest reminiscence.
“We’re all very moved and really grateful for everyone who performed a job on this,” Jerry Benn stated. “And the way serendipitous — a dialog between two nurses and an accent led to this.”
A particular Memorial Day
Invoice’s siblings consider him day by day, and particularly on Memorial Day, once they share remembrances on Fb. This coming Memorial Day will carry further significance.
“Due to this undertaking and reliving every thing, for me and everyone in our household, it’s going so as to add a complete new perspective and emotional contact to the celebration of Memorial Day,” Jerry Benn stated.
“Particularly poignant,” is how Vince Benn put it. He’ll be talking on the household’s behalf at Saturday’s graduation.
“Invoice deserves to be memorialized,” Vince stated. “That’s the least we will do for him, and I feel this sort of recognition by his faculty, particularly if we will publicize it to his pals within the Shore space, will go a great distance towards preserving his reminiscence.
“That’s extraordinarily vital.”
Jerry Carino is neighborhood columnist for the Asbury Park Press, specializing in the Jersey Shore’s fascinating folks, inspiring tales and urgent points. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.
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