Shadow box

The passing of a hero: Command Sgt. Maj. Galen Kittleson

TOETERVILLE — The final battle of a distinguished soldier is finished.
Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Galen Kittleson died of cancer late Thursday.
He was 81.
“We won’t see another like Sergeant-Major,” 36-year-old Jon Henaman of St. Ansgar, a veteran of the Army airborne infantry, said of his mentor. “He was an incredible man who touched many lives, a legend in the military Special Forces.”
And among civilians of all ages who knew the man.
“Gay’s life was about core values — family, faith, love of country and respect for his fellow human beings,” 41-year-old Bob Collier of Austin, Minn., said. “His was a life of service and sacrifice.”
Kittleson’s distinguished military career spanned four decades, several continents and three wars — World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
One of the elite Alamo Scouts during World War II and a Green Beret in Vietnam, Kittleson rose through the ranks to become command sergeant major of the 1st Special Forces and the U.S. Army garrison on Okinawa.
His age and the affection he elicited from the thousands of young troops he trained at Fort Bragg, N.C., earned Kittleson the nickname “Pappy.”
There are medals — Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart and more — of which he seldom spoke.
There is a book — “Raider” — chronicling Kittleson’s remarkable life of service.
Former Green Beret and military journalist Charles Sasser said of Kittleson, “He is a hero. Everyone in Special Forces knew him. Yet almost no one outside the military knows, because true heroes like Galen do not draw attention to themselves. They just live.”
As a 19-year-old in 1943, he carried a mortally wounded comrade out of the dense New Guinea jungle. He was awarded the Silver Star.
Even the span of 56 years could not erase the deep sadness in his dark eyes. “He didn’t make it,” Kittleson said in a 1999 interview.
At a tender age, Kittleson learned to face and overcome his deepest fears.
He was in Cabanatuan on Jan. 30, 1945 — part of the daring raid when the 6th Ranger Battalion and a handful of Alamo Scouts liberated some 500 American prisoners who survived the Bataan Death March.
He was there in the fall of 1957 — when the now famous “Little Rock Nine” took their first tentative steps into history, integrating Little Rock, Ark., Central High School.
He was there in 1970 — part of the POW raid on Son Tay near Hanoi in North Vietnam.
More than 30 years later, in a 2002 interview, frustration still lingered as Kittleson shook his head, saying “That one didn’t work out.”
When he retired in 1979, his beloved troops bronzed his beret before Kittleson returned to his rural Mitchell County roots with his wife, Darlene.
And once again, he was there for another generation — the teenagers of the Alamo Scout Troop he founded in 1982.
Collier and Army Sgt. 1st Class Elisa Feldt, now a decorated member of the elite Golden Knights Parachute Team, were among the first Alamo Scout alumni.
Kittleson, they say, was a commanding figure.
His manner was straightforward; his expectations, high. His lessons of honesty, self-discipline, self-reliance and respect shaped the adults they would become.
“Yet he was such a humble man, certainly never one to brag,” Collier said. “Not until I read the book, did I fully understand his accomplishments, his self-sacrifice.”
“Sergeant Major has been an inspiration in my life, the person behind my career in the military,” the 41-year-old Feldt said. “He taught me discipline. From him I learned about honor, about courage. I will always remember him in that uniform, standing tall.”
A poor farmer’s son from Iowa, Kittleson traveled far from his roots, finding courage and faith, said his son, Lance Kittleson, an ordained minister and chaplain in the Army Reserve. “And in doing so he earned the love of his family and the respect and gratitude of a nation.”
For Galen Kittleson — the soldier and the man — even in death, there is victory.

Kittleson, Galen C., CSM