Marine Corporal Billy Wilson was severely injured in Viet Nam in 1969. One afternoon in 1988, I was having a beer with Billy in the Hillside, a country tavern where Billy has worked since he got out of Philadelphia Naval Hospital in 1970. Over these beers, Billy asked if I had ever had a set of Marine Corps Dress Blues. I answered him no, because, like him, a Corporal in those years did not require that dress uniform. Billy then said, "It would be neat to be buried in a set of Dress Blues!"

I thought that if ever a Marine had earned a set of Dress Blues, it was Corporal Wilson, so I set out to find Billy Wilson's Blues. I thought I would ask a pair of recruiters from the Harrisburg Recruiting Station to bring the uniform to the Hillside on a busy Friday night, call everyone to attention and present Billy with his new Dress Blues.

As word got around Gettysburg that this was going to soon happen, more and more people asked me to be sure to let them know when this date was to be scheduled. Soon, the Hillside Restaurant was not big enough to handle the number of people interested in attending this presentation, so I had to find another place.

During this time, along with then Captain Brad Shultis (now LtCol) and Mark Nesbit, a local Civil War author, I wrote a letter to the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General A.M. Gray, about our upcoming ceremony honoring a Viet Nam veteran. This letter is linked at the bottom of the page.

On 10 June, 1989, General A.M. Gray came to the Gettysburg National Cemetery and pinned a Bronze Star with combat V and a Purple Heart on Billy Wilson's new Dress Blues.

During this ceremony, the General said he was going to do something he has only done 8 times in his entire career as a Gunfighter in the Marine Corps. He said I am going to salute an enlisted Marine! Billy started to stand up and General Gray bellowed, "You sit down! I will do the standing and saluting!" When General A.M. Gray saluted Corporal Billy Wilson, there wasn't a dry eye in the entire crowd gathered at the Gettysburg National Cemetery.