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A Fitting Honor for Joe Thorne
Apr 6, 2011
Every time I return to Brookings, it seems my alma mater, South Dakota State University, has changed. On my last trip there to gather stories for a feature in our next issue, I saw the new Jackrabbit Village residential complex. Three new dorms in the formerly green patch near my old stomping grounds inside Brown Hall. Each is named for important alumni or faculty - Velva Lu Spencer (SDSU's first Native American adviser), Cleve Abbott (first African-American varsity athlete at State from Watertown) and Joe Thorne.
Thorne could have been many things, including a star on Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers. But Thorne died in a fiery explosion near Qui Nhon, Vietnam in April 1965. He was just 24 years old and was the first South Dakotan killed in the Vietnam War.
Thorne was a high school football star at Beresford and became a strong fullback at State. He played on the 1961 conference championship team coached by the legendary Ralph Ginn. The Packers drafted him, and he attended a summer rookie camp in 1963. But when he didn't show again, Lombardi called his home. Thorne's dad told the coach that Joe hadn't gone to school to learn how to be a football player. He had joined the Army ROTC on campus and felt obligated to serve his country in the military. Lombardi said he understood and invited Joe to call him after his military service was complete.
But a little over a year later, enemy ground fire pummeled the helicopter he was piloting over Vietnam. Another nearby plane also took a direct hit. Both crashed and exploded, killing nine men.
Consider yourself lucky if you're living in one of the new halls. Their modernity and amenities far surpass anything else on campus. But take a moment the next time you step into Thorne Hall to remember its namesake.
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Comments
We became very close friends in high school and later I was best man in his wedding. Diane,the girl that he married was my date at a dance at SDSU. I introduced them and that was the end of my date. Later, Joe was also the best man at my wedding.
I think about Joe frequently and I am very thankful that I had the good fortune to have known him as a friend.
For a while thereafter the impact was less literal, just the thrill of seeing Joe’s exploits from the stands and writing them up for the Collegian’s sports page. But as I completed sophomore year, thinking of entering advanced Army ROTC in the fall—but aware that as recently married man, baby on the way, I probably could avoid military service—the example Joe had set by pursuing a commission in those same circumstances helped persuade me to go ahead.
Later came time to decide whether to take the Army up on an offer to buy me flight lessons at Brookings airport in exchange for a promise to accept orders to Army flight school after commissioning. Hey, Joe did it, it must be okay, right? And so it was that in April, 1965, my wife and I were watching from our quarters on my very first day at the Primary Helicopter School, when Walter Cronkite brought us the story of eight flag-draped caskets coming back from Vietnam—one, he announced, bearing the remains of 1LT Joseph Thorne from South Dakota.
That was an impact I couldn’t shake off. But, with Joe never far from my mind, I completed my training, served one anxious year flying Hueys in Vietnam… and soon after left the Army. And to this day, I mull the randomness of fate that brings some soldiers home to live lives and grow old, and denies that chance to others who may have deserved it more.