July 21, 1967
Paul Matejka suggested we add this site ~ the Virtual Wall where you can find John Louis Anderson's name.
Updated 07/26/2015 with more info from Roger Brooks (right click on pictures and "open link in new tab" in order to increase size.)
Updated 10/23/11 with these three pieces of information (photographs) received from Roger Brooks:
Message from Mark Lotspeich (7/12/11) ~ I was pleased to read some of the information on John. I did get to see his name on the Vietnam Memorial, also. Quite moving and sad. Below are some remembrances I have of John.
John was my first “town” friend since my first years were mostly at the ranch. His family lived just a few doors south of mine on Emerson Avenue. We got acquainted at about age five--kindergarten at old Emerson Grade School.
We spent many afternoons at one another’s home, playing cars and trucks, being soldiers (his choice) or cowboys (my choice), riding bikes, antagonizing his Irish Setter dog, or snooping in his older brother Charlie’s bedroom in their basement.
We built a two-story, wooden fort, with a basement, in my back yard. Ronnie Sword’s dad furnished the lumber--it’s just that he didn’t know it or authorize it. We rode our bikes down the alley behind his house at night, placed two or three long boards on our bike handle bars (one bike in front of the other), then pedaled quietly back to our construction site, guiding with one hand and securing our loot with the other.
John had a nose and a knack for making money. He had a paper route, lawn jobs, snow shoveling deals. On a snow day from school, he’d call me to get ready to shovel snow. We did the two houses he always cleared snow for first, then we knocked on the door of any house that hadn’t been shoveled yet. We made $20.00 or $30.00 apiece each day.
At some point in time, during our grade school years, we made a pact to be each other’s best man when we got married. (We hadn’t yet learned the protocol of brothers in that ceremony.) So, when I got married in 1965, John stood up with me as my groomsman. When he got to the wedding, he was recovering from a car accident that happened in Montana where he had attended college. He had a broken arm supported in a sling, and his fiance had been killed in that wreck.
This turned out to be my last contact with John. He reported shortly after this to Officer Candidate School, and then died in Vietnam. He was a true friend for me.
Info and picture sent in by Roger Brooks: The traveling wall came to Sioux Falls SD in June of 2010. I signed up to stand guard on the wall and did so in honor of John. John and I graduated from high school together in 1961. He chose the Marines and I chose the Navy. Our class of 1961 will be holding our 50 year reunion in 2011 and the only information in all of our reunion books on John is his name with the word “deceased” following his name. This year with the help of Sharon Phillip’s website and the Army investigator who helped get John’s story to me, there is a lot more information. John, you are still with us and now your name will mean something to a lot more of your classmates.
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