Marine Major is Grand Marshal for Elmhurst Memorial Day Parade
ELMHURST, IL, May 20, 2011 — The Grand Marshal for Elmhurst’s 93rd Memorial Day Parade is Edwin H. Walker IV, a highly-decorated Major in the United States Marine Corps who served in Vietnam, Korea and Cuba.
The parade through downtown Elmhurst will be held on Monday, May 30, starting at 9:30 a.m. Following the parade, a Military Ceremony will be conducted at the Veterans Memorial in Wilder Park at around 11 a.m.
“I consider myself to be highly honored to be chosen for this position and accept with humble gratitude,” said Walker.
He was awarded a Bronze Star with Combat “V” and Vietnamese Silver Star with Oak Leaf Cluster for “Meritorious service” in connection with operations against insurgent communists (Viet Cong) forces, including the TET Offensive in January of 1968. In Vietnam, he was an Assistant Operations Officer and Operations Officer of the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, stationed out of DaNang, and then served as Commanding Officer of the 1st Force Reconnaissance Company, operating out of Phu Bai Combat Base.
Walker also received a Letter of Commendation from Brigadier General William R. Collins, then Commanding General, Ground Forces, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, citing his “high degree of professional competence and devotion to duty” during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962 (see adjacent story) while on temporary assignment as Collins’ Aide-de-Camp.
In 1963, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, he served as Infantry Advisor to the First Korean Marine Division in Pohang, South Korea.
Prior to Vietnam, he served as Director of the Regimental School at Camp Pendelton, California and made his 100th parachute jump, clad in dress blues, in July of 1965.
He enlisted in the Marines as a candidate for Officer Training Class in Quantico, Va., commencing in January of 1956 and graduating the following September.
Commissioned as a Second Lieutenant, he was assigned to the 3rd Marine Division in Okinawa, Japan, serving first with Delta Battery and then Hotel Company, 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines. In 1958, he returned to the Marine Corps School in Quantico as a Platoon Commander and became Aide-de-Camp to then-Colonel Collins, Director, Marine Corps Landing Force Development Center, who awarded him a Letter of Commendation for “unselfish devotion to duty” as Chapel Organist.
In 1960, he attend Basic Airborne Training at Fort Benning, Ga., and was a Platoon Commander 2nd S3 with the 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company at Camp Lejeune, N.C. He also attended the Naval Underwater Swimmers (SCUBA) in Key West, Fla., and the Military Skiing 2nd Mountain Leadership Training Course at the Mountain Warfare Training Center at Bridgeport, Calif., in the Sierra Nevedas. In 1962, he attend the Far East Survival School at the Military Assistance Institute in Washington, D.C.
Born in Richmond, Ky., on March 17, 1932, as the eldest of three children, Walker is a graduate of The Choate School in Wallingford, Conn. While on deferment, he graduated Magna Cum Laude from Centre College in Danville, Ky., in 1954 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in German and music, with minors in English and philosophy. Next, he attended the University of Heidelberg in Germany on a Fulbright Scholarship.
A former Anglican priest, Walker has served as President and CEO of the Maywood Chamber of Commerce for 16 of the past 20 years and Vice President of the Maywood Bataan Day Organization since 1987. He also was Executive Director of The Way Back Inn recovery center in Maywood from 1987-96.
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