FIFTY YEARS OF SERVICE

from July Connection 2020

by Connection Magazine

SUMMER LIBRARY PROGRAMS

Sgt. James Ballay, Sr.

James Ballay, Jr.

Members of the Ballay family continue military service Fifty years

the same name, the same mission

History has odd ways of resonating.

Fifty years ago, America was at war in South Vietnam. Like all wars, there were local casualties. Monett veterans have not tallied the count of soldiers lost in that war. Many from the bi-county area served, as The Monett

Times reported in the day. Ten Barry

County names have been included in a list of Missouri Vietnam veterans in a memorial at College of the Ozarks, and another in Jefferson City.

The loss is still felt keenly among some of the families. To this day, the family of Thomas Wolfe is still trying to retrieve his remains from where his plane was shot down in Laos in 1966.

In the family of one of Monett’s

Vietnam casualties, a young man bearing the name of a lost soldier, has embraced the legacy of his family member by completing his training to become a

U.S. Marine.

James Ballay, a 1967 Monett High

School graduate, the son of Mr. and

Mrs. Elmer V. Ballay of Monett, was killed in action in Cambodia on May 12, 1970. Ballay had recently been promoted to the rank of sergeant while serving with A Company, Third Battalion, 506th Infantry of the 101st Airborne Division in South Vietnam.

He had been decorated numerous times, receiving the Combat Infantryman Badge, the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, the Air Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the Republic of Vietnam Campaign Ribbon, The Vietnam Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, the Sharpshooter Badge with Automatic Rifle Bar and the Marksman Badge with Machine Gun and Rifle Bars. He had served in Vietnam nearly one year.

“He was literally killed while walking to the helicopter that would have started his journey home,” said his cousin, Gene Ballay, who lives in Aurora. “He had four sisters, two of which still live in Monett — including Betty Ballay Ruscha and her husband, Randy.”

Jimmy Ballay was not the only Monett soldier killed under such non-combat conditions. Max Biggerstaff, another Monett High School graduate, was killed by a sniper in 1945 in Germany while on guard duty just days after combat in World War II ended. Biggerstaff was an accomplished writer who penned many colorful accounts of MHS sports events in the late 1930s while still in high school.

Unlike Biggerstaff and his contemporaries, many of whose families had to wait years for their remains to be

Jimmy Ballay, right, and his brother, Joey, at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.

returned for burial in their home soil, Jimmy Ballay was laid to rest in a couple weeks at the Mt. Calvary Cemetery, north of Monett. It was not the hero’s welcome that Christopher Stark received after he was killed serving in Afghanistan in 2011. There was a minimum presence of veterans there. It was a different time and a different war, something the nation has wrestled with ever since. His grave does not have a military marker.

Gene named his son, Jimmy, in honor of his cousin. Jimmy has taken to heart the service of his namesake, and sought to emulate him by just recently completing his training in the Marine Corps.

But Jimmy’s own course to being one of the nation’s defenders had its own circuitous route.

His mother, Rosa Mae Pepito Ballay, was a citizen of the Philippines and not a U.S. citizen when he was born in 2001. She also gave birth while George was serving in Saudi Arabia. That made her son, in essence, a boy without a country.

Young Jimmy helping to decorate the grave of his namesake.

Jimmy and mom, Rosa, still in Saudi Arabia

“The different rules and regulations leave Americans living/working abroad, in a — almost unknown — gray zone as far as citizenship is concerned,“ Gene said. “Had my wife been in the U.S. illegally, there would have been an automatic grant of citizenship to my son, but when we are living outside U.S., and even when she had a valid U.S. Permanent Resident card, my son was not granted similar status.”

Saudi Arabia required a visa to exit the country, and no visa could be secured with a passport. Numerous applications were rejected before finally getting approved.

Nor is this an unheard of problem. Several of Gene’s friends have had similar experiences.

“Had I been in the military at that time, with the birth on an American military facility, things may very well have been different,” Gene said. “But nevertheless, there are tens of thousands of Americans living and working abroad, and it is very common for them

Jimmy Ballay at left takes his oath to join in U.S. Marines in a ceremony in April in Kansas City. (top left) Jimmy decorating graves on Memorial Day (left) Jimmy’s mom placing the “My son is a Marine” bumper sticker on the family vehicle.

to marry non-American women, and this is an example of what can happen.”

Making things even more odd, Saudi law required, in the birth paperwork, that a newborn son to have his father’s name first and child’s first name as a middle name. Gene said, “A few months later we discovered by accident that we had been crated, by our employer, with two sons, both born on the same day.” It took months to have the records of two children merged.

Rosa became a U.S. citizen in 2002 after Gene had retired from the military.

Former slaves were guaranteed citizenship with the end of the Civil War. A constitutional amendment granted former slaves birthright citizenship. Native Americans, however, had to wait until 1924 for a similar right. The ironies remain.

The family has long kept the late Jimmy Ballay’s memory fresh, as they have continued to honor generations of Ballay soldiers. They have visited veterans’ memorials, including the Vietnam War. Namesake Jimmy has actively participated in putting flags on veterans’ graves on Memorial Day.

So in April 2020, at age 18, Jimmy Ballay proudly took his place among those who stand for his country, taking his oath in Kansas City, though he had to take extra steps to secure his own citizenship.

His mother has proudly placed a bumper sticker on the family vehicle declaring her son is a Marine. His dad, recalling his cousin, thinks he’s not the only one sharing the family’s pride. n

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1. HollyAdams and Ronnie Adams 2. Sue Cochran and Ivy Wright 3. Fred Smith and Dominick Smith 4. Trenton Kluck and Mel Anderson 5. Hailey Mazurwith her niece,

Laney Mazur 6. Ethan Umfleet, Winnie Sagehorn (on shoulders), and Cameron

Sagehorn 7. Julie and Isabelle Farnsworth 8. Julie and Bryce Garner, Ava Elbert,

Sara Elbert and Ramona George

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Pierce City High School held graduation ceremonies on Sunday, May 17, at Don Keebaugh Stadium.

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TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME By Robert Herrick

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, The higher he’s a-getting, The sooner will his race be run, And nearer he’s to setting. That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time, And while ye may, go marry; For having lost but once your prime, You may forever tarry.

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