Family, friends keep veteran's memory alive

Source: La Crosse Tribune, Wis.迷你倉Nov. 09--Gerald Rossow would have loved the campsite that was founded in his memory.He was 18 years old when was killed in the jungles of Indochina on Aug. 25, 1969. A graduate of Central High School, Rossow and four of his closest friends had enlisted in the Marines to fight in the Vietnam War.He was a quiet boy who loved camping, hunting and fishing and worked part time at a service station after school and on Saturdays, said his mother, Verna, who remembers trying to talk her son out of enlisting, trying to keep him safe from the dangerous war.But her son was ambitious and patriotic with a strong sense of duty, and Gerald didn't want to back down. He completed his training and deployed to Laos."He was a long way from home," she said. "He spent a lot of lonely nights there."Gerald sent his military paychecks home from abroad; Verna opened a bank account in his name. In a year he had earned enough to buy a flat bottom boat. He started saving for a Jeep. He never made it."It's terrible, to lose a son," Verna said. "I think about him all the time."After hi自存倉 death, relatives donated a 9 1/2 acre cow pasture and named the land in Rossow's memory.Located between Stoddard and Chaseburg, the retreat has been lovingly maintained by his family and friends and local Lutheran churches for nearly four decades.In the 70s and 80s, youth groups from the churches took weekend trips to the retreat -- much like the camping trips Rossow took as a Boy Pioneer with Grace Lutheran.But in more recent years, interest in the campsite has waned, retreat president Terry Baier said."Kids just don't go camping anymore," he said.Baier and retreat treasurer Adolph Lindahl hope to sell the campsite and use the proceeds to start an endowment fund for scholarships at Luther High School in Onalaska.The campsite has become too expensive to maintain without anyone using it; a scholarship fund would honor veterans allow Rossow's memory to endure."I think he would have liked that," Verna said.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the La Crosse Tribune (La Crosse, Wis.) Visit the La Crosse Tribune (La Crosse, Wis.) at .lacrossetribune.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉