Vincent J. Deon

Northampton supervisor enjoyed time in Air Force.

By R. Kurt Osenlund, BucksLocalNews.com


Vincent Deon gets uncommonly excited when discussing his military service. Looking back on his memorable stint in the U.S. Air Force, the 46-year-old Northampton resident makes frequent use of words like “awesome,” “cool” and “amazing.” He didn’t see any combat, and he’s quick to observe that those who did “are the true heroes,” but he’s nevertheless proud to have served his country, and he considers himself fortunate to have had a good time doing it.

But good times aren’t what got him into the service in the first place. Born to parents Pasquale and Anna Mae, Deon grew up in Levittown with siblings Pat, Mark, Michael, Lisa and Chris before moving to Langhorne in 1978. At 17, while attending Neshaminy Maple Point High School, two “very big” events occurred that Deon says steered him toward the military.

The first, he vividly remembers, took place on Aug. 20, 1980. Four of his best friends, in a car that would have contained him if not for a last-minute date, got into a horrific accident in Levittown. Two of them died. One of the survivors is currently at Pennswood Village in Newtown, unable to move or speak for the past 30 years.

“It was just one of those things...,” Deon says, searching for the words. “When you’re a kid, and you lose your friends, it’s a crazy, coming-of-age moment.”

The second event was a drastically long teachers’ strike in the Neshaminy School District, which Deon estimates ran from October 1980 to March 1981 – roughly 70 percent of Deon’s senior year of high school. He was still able to graduate on time, but he wasn’t learning anything, and he wasn’t attending meets or meeting with scouts to advance his career as a young gymnast.

Robbed of his friends and his education, Deon passed the time “working and playing” until, on March 5, 1981, he chose to join the military and save up money for college. He decided on the Air Force and enrolled in the Veterans Educational Assistance Program (VEAP), a type of G.I. Bill. Deemed “delayed entry,” Deon didn’t officially join until Nov. 11, 1981, shortly after he turned 18.

His first stop was at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas for basic training, then Sheppard Air Force Base for crew chief training. (A crew chief, Deon explains, is a noncommissioned officer in charge of a crew of maintenance specialists, but more on that in a bit.) After Sheppard, Deon headed to Hill Air Force Base in Utah. It was the spring of 1982. Deon was working on F-16s as a Tactical Aircraft Maintenance Technician. He was part of the 34th Tactical Fighter Squadron of the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing. Each squadron had 20 battle-ready fighter jets, which were deployed for test missions to bases in places like White Sands, N.M. and Wendover, Nev.

“It was very technical and fun,” Deon says, “but we always knew what was at stake. We knew we could eventually get killed if called into battle. We were next in line – we were on alert – for Grenada. We were mobilized and ready to go.”

But he didn’t go. Instead, Deon and his crew were selected for Red Flag, an aerial combat training exercise/competition that Deon considers a “big part” of his career. Held at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Red Flag is to the Air Force what Top Gun is to the Navy, Deon says. Squadrons from across the U.S. compete, and the finest may be selected for the elite Thunderbirds, the Air Force’s official air demo squadron known for its elaborate shows.

Initially sent in as an assistant crew chief, Deon would arrive at Nellis a week prior to Red Flag, and he and his fellow crew members would be in charge of logistics, making sure all of the aircraft maintenance equipment was set up properly, and that every plane had everything it needed, from tools to fuel.

“Red Flag represents the best of the best in the Air Force,” Deon says. “I was chosen to be a part of it. I was very proud of that. It was an awesome assignment.”

Deon was also chosen for Below the Zone (BTZ) promotion, a program reserved for superior Airmen and one that allowed him to enter non-commissioned officers school one year earlier than he’d anticipated. Selected by his squadron commander for BTZ, Deon became a Senior Airmen in the process, then, while in school, was given the rank of Sergeant.

“It was very cool to be a sergeant at 21,” Deon says. “It was awesome to have command bestow that responsibility on me.”

At the same time, Deon earned crew chief status, enhancing his duties when he returned to Red Flag for a second year. This time, he oversaw his crew. After that, with only a short time left in his tour of duty, and nearly a month’s worth of leave days saved up, Deon soon waved au revoir to the Air Force and returned home to hit the books.

With a handful of credits already under his belt from classes he took during time served, Deon attended St. Joseph’s University. He graduated in 1988 with a Bachelor’s degree in marketing. While at college, he met his wife, Grace, with whom he had a daughter, Aubrey, now 13. Upon graduation he dabbled in his family’s beer distribution business, ran a restaurant for nearly a decade, then spent the early half of the 2000s as an insurance adjuster.

He’s spent the last five years working as an employment recruiter for regional banks, assisting in the hiring of commercial lenders in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. In addition, he’s also spent the last five years serving on the Northampton Township Board of Supervisors, of which he is currently the chairman. He’s supported such initiatives as the Veteran Advisory Commission, which was set up by the board to oversee veterans’ concerns in the township.

When asked what he got out of the military, Deon throws out a lot of responses: “Maturity. Humility. Respect. Honesty. Integrity. Core values.”

And, of course, some fun and excitement, too.

Dick Neelan

A dream out at sea during WWII leads to 64 years of marriage.

By Matthew Fleishman, BucksLocalNews.com


While working outside of Pittsburgh in the 1940s, Dick Neelan did not have to fight in World War II, but while out at sea, a dream changed the rest of his life.

Neelan was a machinist on his second deferment in 1943, but his younger brother, Robert, got drafted, so Neelan enlisted to fight.

“I had deferments because I was working in the defense industry,” said Neelan. “I got out of my second deferment because my brother was drafted. Fortunately or unfortunately, I had tried to get into the Marines, but they were filled, so I joined the Navy.”

Neelan tried to stay with his brother, but he graduated two weeks ahead of Robert, and volunteered for the submarine service, which sent Neelan to the Pacific Ocean. Robert did the same two weeks later, winding up in Florida.

“When I graduated, they gave me three choices – Southwest Pacific, Atlantic or Florida,” said Neelan. “I chose Florida but wound up in the Pacific Ocean. He chose the Pacific and wound up in Florida.”

After graduating as a gunner’s mate, Neelan was sent to California to train, and then took a converted carrier to Pearl Harbor. From there, he was assigned to a sub-tender, which would go from island to island repairing American ships.

While this type of duty took Neelan throughout the South Pacific, including Guam, Majuro and Atoll, it did not last long, as he was assigned to the USS Kingfish as a gunner’s mate in 1944.

Aboard the Kingfish, Neelan was part of several patrols, taking out Japanese convoys, which would have brought vital supplies to Japanese troops in the region.

“During one of the patrols, we picked up a Japanese convoy on radar and tracked it all day,” said Neelan. “We fired and took out a few of their ships, and they were dropping depth charges to hit us, but we had already made it out to the horizon and just watched them looking for us, but we were nowhere around.”

After the patrols, the USS Kingfish and its crew were assigned to lifeguard duty in the Pacific, meaning they were the rescue crew for pilots that were shot down or forced to eject from their planes.

“We went on flier guard duty, and picked up a few pilots during that time,” said Neelan. “One was on a raft for two days when we found him. Another barely even got wet because he landed right near us.”

While his tour of duty in the Navy sent Neelan throughout the Pacific Ocean, one night out at sea set up the rest of his life. One night, Neelan had a dream about a girl he had dated before enlisting to fight. The two went out a few times but nothing came of it until the dream.

“My wife and I dated before the Navy and then stopped for some reason,” said Neelan. “Then out at sea, I had a dream about her, so I wrote her a letter. We got married in April 1946.
“It worked out good for me,” continued Neelan. “It was the best thing that happened to me. Marrying her is the one thing I did right in my life.”

Dick and Ruth moved to Yardley in 1965, and have three daughters, eight grandchildren and “two-and-a-half great-grandchildren.”

“One is on the way,” said Neelan.

Despite a tour of duty in the U.S. Navy, and more than 30 years working for U.S. Steel, Neelan says that he is doing his most important work right now – taking care of Ruth, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2008.

“This is my time to take care of her,” said Neelan. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I hope everybody is as lucky as we are because we grow closer and closer each day.”

Graceon White Jr.

Bristol’s only Korean War casualty is remembered.

By Tim Chicirda, BucksLocalNews.com


Over 450,000 Americans died in the Korean War and World War II. Only one from Bristol, according to most sources.

A member of the Bristol High School Class of 1950, Sergeant First Class Graceon H. White, Jr. served as squad leader with the 7th Infantry Division, 17th Infantry Regiment in the U.S. Army.
White died during this week (July 10) in 1952 at the tender age of 20, while on patrol duty.
White lived a short life, but still has a story worth telling from his years before his untimely death.

White was a varsity football player in Bristol High. He lived with his paternal grandmother, Mrs. Lucy White, since his widowed dad worked out of town quite often.

After graduation from high school in the Summer of 1950, White took a job in Bristol Borough at Leedom’s Carpet Mill on Beaver Street before he enlisted in the Army in March of 1951.
At the time of his death, his father, Graceon H. White, Sr. and his stepmother, Mildred White and his only sibling, Marie White, survived him.

Graceon, in his short life of two decades, was unable to leave a lot of history but he left a lot of heart. He gave his all in what has been termed “The Forgotten War.”

Graceon served with Corporal Fred Bernerd McGee, Sr., who distinguished himself by gallantry in action near Tang-Wan-Ni, Korea during an assault on enemy fortified positions.

According to Corporal Fred, he and Graceon and their other buddy, the late Captain Charles “Sonny Boy” Simpson III were “real fast friends and looked like brothers.”

As the gunner on a light machine gun in a weapons squad, Corporal McGee delivered a heavy volume of supporting fire from an exposed position, despite intense enemy machine gun and mortar fire directly on his position. One particular combat was a “very bad battle, a bloodbath.”
Fred was shot in the face and the leg. He was recommended for the Medal of Honor and a Battlefield Commission by his West Point commanding officer, but this was pre-Civil Rights America. When the medals were distributed, he received a lesser medal, the Silver Star.

Cpl. McGee’s heroic actions and decisive thinking saved many on that bloody battlefield but a few months later, he was unable to dissuade Graceon from participating in the battle that claimed his life.

“I’m not worried,” Graceon responded. He was determined to make “Master Sergeant and go home and get married.”

The “good guy who never smoke or drank” was killed that night and lay on the road among several other bodies under the makeshift shelters. Fred refused to look at his friend for the last time.

Graceon’s grandmother had baked and sent homemade cookies for the three of them as they were unselfishly enduring the harsh environment and remaining focused to their cause of freedom. Fred made a trip to Bristol in the 1980s but was unsuccessful in locating any of Graceon’s family.

Girlfriend at the time of death, May Daughtrey and White had exchanged letters every day. She was engaged in 1950 to the “very handsome, very nice, and a lot of fun” soldier.

“Everyone seemed to love him. He was a genuine good person.”

As high school sweethearts, they swam and ice skated together at Silver Lake and played co-ed softball. In the last letter she received, he had written, “I’m gonna go on my last patrol and be home soon.” Cpl. McGee reminisced, “Graceon loved that girl May.”

She shed many tears as she walked around Silver Lake in the evenings after she lost him.
California resident W. May Guillory now has three daughters and two granddaughters. She has never forgotten him, especially every July 10.

White's close friend, Sid Taylor, a local historian, was especially impacted by Graceon’s death because “his life was cut so short.”

According to Sid, “He was smart; a very bright kid. He was born to be a hero. It was the way he was.”

Sid recalls him as a very good football and baseball player: “He played hard. He would get knocked out cold.”

White gave his own dark blue Elks baseball cap to Sid as a keepsake when he left for the service. Sid remembers their last car ride when he drove to Fort Dix with Graceon, his father and his girlfriend, May.

Sid paused for a few moments. With compassion, he shared, “He gave all he had for his country.” Graceon White made the supreme sacrifice.

And that sacrifice came just 20 years after his birth, touching many people along the way, despite few records of his legacy around.

Though one quote under his yearbook picture reflects the feelings of all who knew him:
“Gray is friendly in every way. We hope he never goes away.”

*Cate Murway contributed to this article.