Iowa Veterans Home honors Marshalltown Marine who fell at end of Vietnam Tuesday
Darwin Judge's valor recalled as part of "Iowa Vietnam Veterans Recognition Day"
MARSHALLTOWN - The 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War will be commemorated at an event 10 a.m. Tuesday (April 29) at the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown by honoring a Marine from that city who gave his life helping others to reach safety.
It’s part of “Iowa Vietnam Veterans Recognition Day” at the Veterans Home. The community and public are invited to attend.
Darwin Judge, born in Garwin, was a 19-year old Marine lance corporal, Eagle Scout and 1974 graduate of Marshalltown High School. He was one of the last Americans to be killed in Vietnam.
He died the day before Saigon fell on April 30, 1975, along with fellow Marine Charles McMahon of Woburn, Mass., in a rocket attack on Tan Son Nhut airport, part of an assault by five North Vietnamese Army divisions on the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon.
Judge and McMahon were part of the Marine Security Guard detachment at the U.S. Embassy at Saigon. More than 7,000 Americans and South Vietnamese would be evacuated to U.S. Navy ships April 29-30, 1975 as part of "Operation Frequent Wind." Two other Marines died in a helicopter crash into the South China Sea according to The New York Times.
While Judge and McMahon were the last to fall in combat within Vietnam, about three weeks later, 38 Marines would be killed, 50 wounded and three captured and subsequently executed in the recapture of the seized American merchant ship SS Mayaguez from communist Cambodian Khmer Rouge forces on Koh Tang Island off the Cambodian coast. It is considered the last official battle of the Vietnam War.
In the chaos and confusion surrounding the fall of Saigon, Judge’s and McMahon’s bodies were left behind at a hospital near Tan Son Nhut airport. U.S. Sen Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts intervened and secured their return in 1976. Judge’s remains were laid to rest in Marshalltown and a second ceremony with military honors was held in 2000.
During coverage of that second ceremony, a Marine embassy comrade reported his 3-year-old daughter had been rescued by Judge during the evacuation. After her father’s frantic attempts to reach and get her out were unsuccessful, Judge secured her, carried her piggyback and ran out and placed her on a departing plane. The account was included in a report by Bob Faw of NBC News. A Marshalltown park was dedicated in Judge’s name in 2001.
Former U.S. Ambassador Kenneth M. Quinn, decorated by the U.S. State Department and the Army for valor for his work in Cambodia and Vietnam, will be a featured speaker at Wednesday's program at the Iowa Veterans Home. He grew up in Dubuque and is a graduate of Loras College. He is a former president of the World Food Prize which is based in Des Moines and was established by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug of Cresco.
Also speaking will be Ken Locke, Judge’s childhood friend and fellow Marine Corps veteran now living in Moscow, Ind.
There will be a wreath laying at the Vietnam memorial on the Veterans Home grounds as part of the observance.
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. They are listed here. Clink on their individual links to check them out, subscribe for free - and, if you believe in the value of quality journalism, support this column and/or any of theirs with a paid subscription. Thank you.