John Dietz has learned how to walk four times and how to speak three times.
A veteran of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, Dietz suffered neurological damage after metal tank parts smashed into the side of his head.
While on his second tour in Vietnam, his wife and infant daughter died in a fire.
Despite his hardships, the 19-year resident of Mills Park Tower-who can walk but travels by motorized cart-still maintains a positive disposition. He speaks five languages fluently, was awarded three Purple Hearts, and next Wednesday, he’ll lead the July 4th Parade in Oak Park.
‘What a hero he really is’
This past Memorial Day, Marianne Trifone, an Oak Park native who now lives in Hoffman Estates, noticed Dietz alone on an Oak Park corner. She was bothered that, on a day honoring soldiers, a 30-year veteran was alone and ignored in the public eye.
“It made me pissed off to see how many people walked by him and didn’t even acknowledge his presence,” Trifone, 45, said.
She greeted and thanked Dietz for serving his country, but forgot to get his last name. So she wrote the two Oak Park newspapers, hoping he’d read her letter [Viewpoints, June 6]. She also expressed a hope that Dietz might lead the village’s July 4th parade.
Bob Gunder, a 12-year friend of Dietz and resident at Mills Park Tower-an independent living residence mostly for seniors-noticed Trifone’s letter and phoned Wednesday Journal with the veteran’s last name.
Trifone called the chair of the Community Relations Commission subcommittee, Chris Jackson, who is helping to organize this year’s parade.
Jackson conferred with the commission and Dietz is now set to lead the seventh annual march up Ridgeland Avenue next Wednesday, starting at 10 a.m. from Longfellow to Taylor Park.
“What he’s been through-the man is really strong in his beliefs and in life,” Gunder, 68, said. “If anybody deserved any other medals aside from what he earned, he really deserves something. He’s a fantastic man.”
“It will really mean a lot to him,” friend and Mills Park Manager Melissa Winn said.
Some residents at Mills Park, though, are strangers to Dietz, saying he’s private.
“He’s very much to himself,” one female resident said.
“He’s lonesome,” friend and 4-year resident Simon Reis, 89, added.
“A lot of people don’t know the real John,” said Gunder. “They don’t know what a hero he really is.”
‘They told me I’d never walk or talk again’
Dietz (pronounced DEETS), 72, was born in Chicago. After graduating at Lane Tech High School, he was shipped off to serve three years in Korea (1950-1953) at the age of 17. His marine buddies built him a cake out of snow to celebrate his 18th birthday.
On returning, he attended the University of Michigan, where he played linebacker for the Wolverines, earning an engineering degree in 1961. Dietz didn’t go to many “beer parties” but did work as bartender at a place called the Golden Jug.
He spent time training at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, Calif. A few years later, he was shipped to Vietnam, where he served three tours from 1963 to 1971.
War ravaged Dietz and his family. His two younger brothers, a step-brother and five close friends died in Vietnam.
Dietz’s younger sister also lost her husband in the war, which drove her into semi-seclusion in Northern Wisconsin. His father died while fighting in World War II.
On his second tour in Vietnam, Dietz received a telegram that his wife of three years, Errika, had died in a fire at their Southern California home. His 4-month-old daughter also perished. Dietz had never seen her because his wife was still pregnant when he left for duty.
His wife was bed-ridden with a broken leg that occurred while roller-skating. She was using an electric blanket. The visiting nurse left briefly, and it shorted-out. She kicked it to the floor, igniting the drapes. The flames spread and eventually engulfed the house. The two died from smoke inhalation.
He met his wife, who was 39 when she died, at the Milford Ballroom in Chicago. Dietz says he was a “polka fiend” and went there to dance and listen to Polish music.
During his third tour, the side of his tank was hit, sending metal parts flying against his head. It split his skull, causing cranial damage. Afterwards, he spent six months in a California naval hospital learning to walk again. The blow severed Dietz’s optic nerve, leaving him with 30 percent vision in his left eye.
He remained in the Marine Corps as a recruit training coordinator before returning to Chicago in 1977. Shortly after, he was hit by a car screeching around a corner which launched him into the air. He landed on the back of his skull and re-fractured it. He retired from the service that year after spending six months in advanced therapy learning to walk and talk again.
In 1986, Dietz’s neurological problems re-emerged, and he left his engineering job. He relapsed, going into what’s called Guillain-Barré syndrome-neurological recoil-which can happen after injuries related to paralysis, Dietz said.
Transferred to various hospitals, he landed at the Rehab Institute of Chicago where he spent six months, once again learning to walk and talk.
Some effects linger. Hemiplegic paralysis still hinders the right side of his body. He can only walk carefully. His right hand can grab but needs help being opened. The right side of his jaw is loose.
“It was just a matter of getting the old body back into some sort of function,” Dietz said. “They told me I’d never walk or talk again, but I couldn’t see that.”
Trying to eliminate memory
Dietz moved into Mills Park Towers in 1986 and has lived there ever since. He still does some physical and speech therapy by himself a couple of days a week in his seventh floor apartment, using books and exercise bikes.
Despite his handicaps, he cooks all his meals, cleans his apartment and does his own laundry. He likes to zip around town in his motorized cart which is decorated with U.S. Marines bumper stickers, a University of Michigan decal and tattered American and Marine flags attached to an antenna.
He smokes cigars from Ecuador and likes to explore Oak Park and Chicago.
“They should put advertisements on his scooter because he goes everywhere,” eight-year resident John Reeves, 46, said. “He probably knows Oak Park better than the police do.”
Dietz also likes to watch traffic, it seems almost therapeutic to him. Sometimes watching the craziness of the world puts things in perspective. He can forget some of his tragedies when he sees people racing by at Harlem and Lake trying to solve a million problems.
It helps him to forget, to let go of any memories of difficult times, he says. Formal therapy seems pointless to him.
“There’s really nothing [doctors] can do to the mind. What’s happened, there is no way to take it away,” Dietz said. “War involves people [in a way] that its end cannot be removed from the mind, except if the individuals themselves step out of it psychologically in regards to memory.
“I try to eliminate memory because it’s of no value,” he said.
The busy traffic helps him remember that war is not an excuse and everyone has problems, some worse than his.
“You cannot blame war. Everybody has problems, regardless,” Dietz said. “There are bigger problems in life, and watching traffic makes me feel a lot easier.”
