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Submariners honor Pentagon victim
Ceremony notes military service of Nampa native
By Charles Etlinger
The Idaho Statesman
Tuesday 25 September 2001

GARDEN CITY -- A group of submariners honored their fallen comrade and Nampa native Lt. Cmdr. Ronald James Vauk on Monday with the tolling of a bell.

The U.S. Naval Reserves officer died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon while serving at the military headquarters for a week.

Vauk, 37, had served on two submarines, the USS Glenard P. Lipscomb and the USS Oklahoma City.

He was remembered in a memorial service at VFW Post 63, by the Boise Base of the United States Submarine Veterans Inc. Eight former submariners and several other military veterans attended in the post, which was festooned with American flags.

A picture of Vauk taken in his days at the U.S. Naval Academy was on a table in front of the room.

After a recording of the Navy Hymn was played, Mitchell Lint, the submariners' group Boise commander, declared "his memory will remain within our hearts as long as we shall live and breathe."

Lint said Vauk "served his country in its time of need. He served well and with honor. He stepped beyond the call to duty into the hazardous duty of submarines."

Then the group's Fred Wagner read a list of some of the Navy submarines that were lost going back to 1920. After each ship was mentioned a bell was struck, as it was after he pronounced Vauk's name. After a moment of silence, a recording was played of the klaxon that is sounded when a sub dives.

Before the ceremony, John King of Boise, who served in submarines in the Pacific in World War II, recalled that the United States lost about 3,500 submariners in the war. He noted that more than 6,000 people died in one day in the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon.

"Vauk died for his country," King said. "Just like all our other shipmates, he died in action."

Vauk, of Mt. Airy, Md., was working as an assistant group supervisor in submarine technology at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

When he died, U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said in a statement, "he was doing what he loved to do as a Navy reservist."

Photos by Darin Oswald / The Idaho Statesman

      
Veterans Jack Shindledecker, Boise, and Fred Wilder behind him, bow their heads Monday night in a moment of silence for Lt. Cmdr. Ronald James Vauk, who died in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon on Sept. 11.

Vauk and other submariners who have died while serving their country were honored during a ceremony at Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 63. Vauk attended Nampa High School and is a cousin to Shindledecker's son-in-law.
Veteran Mitchell Lint honors the memory of Lt. Cmdr. Ronald James Vauk in the same ceremony. Other events

Ronald Vauk's widow, Jennifer, will be presented the Purple Heart at a ceremony Friday at Johns Hopkins University.

Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 12:45 p.m. Saturday at the Arlington National Cemetery Chapel in Washington, D.C. Interment will follow at the cemetery. A Navy admiral will present the flag to Vauk's widow.

Memorial Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Oct. 6 by Father Jerry Funke at St. Paul's Catholic Church, Nampa.

Vauk Fund - Donations may be made to the Ronald James Vauk Benefit Fund at any Wells Fargo Bank office.
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