A Winona man killed in the Vietnam War remains unforgotten nearly 50 years later.
Guy Hester’s gravesite is next on a list of visits that are a part of a summer-long effort to honor all of the United States Military Academy at West Point’s class of 1969’s fallen soldiers. Hester’s classmate, Ray Dupere of Connecticut, has traveled to nearly a dozen states to perform memorial services for soldiers not buried at the campus in New York.
Hester was killed in Vietnam in 1970, just one year after he graduated from the United States Military Academy. He had been married to Elsie Lynn, a Winona native, for one year, one month and one day at the time of his death.
Hester’s father was a military man himself. The elder Hester moved the family around the country as he was stationed in different states. Hester’s senior year of high school, the family moved to Winona and Guy attended Winona High School. There is where he met the love of his life. Elsie Lynn was a freshman.
After graduating, Guy stayed in Mississippi for a year before enrolling in the United States Military Academy at West Point. While at West Point, Guy was given one month of leave in the summer and two weeks for Christmas. For four years, this was all Elsie Lynn was able to see of him. The only exception was when she got old enough to start visiting New York on her own. Once she got there, “it was like a fairytale,” she said.
In his last year, Hester and some of his closest West Point friends decided to volunteer for Vietnam. At the time, it was common to get drafted and have to go whether you wanted to or not, Elsie Lynn said, but Guy was the type of guy that felt it was his calling to serve.
The September after Guy graduated, Elsie Lynn Holder became Elsie Lynn Hester. Guy seemed to want to have every kind of training there was. The couple moved to Fort Benning in Georgia where Guy went to Airborne School, Ranger School and an Infantry training course.
That January, the Hesters moved to Fort Riley in Kansas. In March, Hester received his Vietnam orders, to leave that August.
Since Hester was the type to make every moment count, he returned to Winona with Elsie Lynn that summer to be with his family. Elsie Lynn said the Hesters took her in as if she were their own. For the two summer months that Hester was in Winona awaiting deployment, he decided that he would learn to fly. He earned his pilot’s license in Greenwood in record time.
“He was really smart,” Elsie Lynn remembered fondly. “It was all such a wonderful experience.”
While Hester loved to live in the moment, he also knew how to have foresight. Before leaving, he told his wife if something were to happen to him, he wanted to be buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Winona. He also gave her a poem he said he wanted engraved on his tombstone.
Like the rest of their love story, a beautiful sadness hangs over Hester’s last wishes. No more than six weeks after he had left for Vietnam, Elsie Lynn followed Guy’s orders to the letter.
On October 1, 1970, Elsie Lynn received a telegram that Guy had been mortally wounded. He was a reconnaissance platoon leader, a position Elsie Lynn called “the hardest job you could have.” He was on the very front lines.
“He wanted to be in the front so if there was any trouble, he would see the trouble first,” Elsie Lynn said. The four other men who were injured with him that day survived.
Although Elsie Lynn eventually remarried, now Elsie Lynn Hester Ervin, she has never forgotten her first love or the love and support given to her by his family and the community after his passing.
Many of Hester’s closest friends at West Point and their wives kept in touch with Elsie Lynn for decades. They all remember being young and particularly passionate during those years.
“It was a special time, but it was a really sad time,” Elsie Lynn said. “I wouldn’t trade anything for it.”
There will be a scripture reading, prayer, biography reading and devotional given by Dupere at Oakwood Cemetery on July 26 at 10 a.m. There will also be an opportunity for open sharing if anyone would like to give a few words. The ceremonies have usually lasted about half an hour, Dupere said.
“I had a sense from God that it’s something I should do,” he said.
Dupere is a retired Army Chaplain and minister. He will use photos from each memorial he hosts this summer to create a special presentation to be shown next year at the class of 1969’s 50th and final class reunion.
Elsie Lynn plans to be there, too.
