Our Veterans, Our Stories Podcast

Dean Shilling – U.S. Marine Corps – Gold Star Family

Podcasts 2026 – Dean Shilling

0:00:00

(Speaker 1)

Welcome to the Our Veterans, Our Stories podcast with the Hancock County Veterans Service Office. This is where we give our local veterans an opportunity to share their stories with our community and beyond. There is a real brotherhood among all vets, and it will be great to help others to know their stories about serving our country. And it gives us an opportunity to introduce the community to our team at the Hancock County Veterans Service Office, so people can learn a little bit more about what we do and how we can help. Welcome back to our podcast, Our Veterans, Our Stories. Today on this episode, we have Dr. Burr Schilling with us.

0:00:36

(Speaker 1)

He is a Gold Star family, and I kind of just want to explain what a Gold Star family is before we get into this conversation. A Gold Star family is a family member of a U . S. service member who made the ultimate sacrifice and died in while serving and the gold star comes from the gold star emblem on the service flag so that is where the actual meaning behind gold star family comes from. So welcome, and thank you for being here today, Bert. Thank you for inviting me.

0:01:12

(Speaker 1)

Yeah. So let’s just start off. Let’s talk about Dean. Dean is your brother. My brother, Dean. I want to just know, what was he like as a person before he went into the military?

0:01:25

(Speaker 1)

Just some details. OK, well, there were five of us in the family, all adopted. And so Dean was two years younger than I was. I was the oldest. As kids, we just played like normal kids. We were outside playing Cowboys and Indians with our cat pistols and those kind of things.

0:01:46

(Speaker 1)

And then always were angry with our sister, like normal kids do. But we grew up in a happy family. Dean, I still remember as a kid, kid, would go into the post office and see the Marine poster and like that picture. And so he entered the Marine Corps from high school. I was off in college, so a lot of what transpired after I left, he was still in high school, so when he finished high school, he joined the Marine Corps.

0:02:27

(Speaker 1)

Okay, so is that where he got the idea of joining the Marines? I think so. That’s really cool, it’s a good memory. What are some qualities about Dean that you really admired? Well, we have to realize I’m talking about a kid, because I really didn’t know him as an adult. So we basically were teenagers.

0:02:53

(Speaker 1)

And he was quiet, tended to be quiet. I was the vocal one. We talked about things. We shared a bedroom. And we also had our moments, like brothers do, as well. He knew what he wanted and he was, you know, he, like most of us, you know, sometimes had trouble with mom and dad’s rules and that kind of thing, but we all tested things to a limit, you know.

0:03:28

(Speaker 1)

And so I went to his activities, his Boy Scout activities. We were both in Boy Scouts, so we were earning our merit badges and that kind of thing. And so just a normal, teenage brother relationship I guess. It sounds like he kind of already had that being in Boy Scouts that admiration to go into the military, it seems. Is there a story about Dean that is memorable or that brings a smile to your face?

0:04:06

(Speaker 1)

Oh my. I can think of things like, we used to ride our bikes from Rawson to Arlington to go swimming at the swimming pool. We used to ride our bikes around the park, which was across the street from our house. Um, but again, that was as kids. And once, once he was in junior high, I was in high school. We really two years apart, didn’t have a lot of same friends and that kind of thing.

0:04:35

(Speaker 1)

So how do people like to remember and honor Dean people or our family, your family friends? Well, um, I lost my mom a year ago at 98. And so, um, she was the gold star mother. Um, Koyrasan High School honored Dean at an assembly on Veterans Day a few years ago. And I don’t know what you want me to tell the stories. I mean, I got…

0:05:10

(Speaker 1)

Absolutely. Well, a few years ago, I called my mother and I said, I’ve never seen Dean’s medals. Do you have his medals? And she said, well, I don’t think I ever got any. So I called your office and Nicole called DC and they sent back a report. That said, it had been delivered to the family.

0:05:35

(Speaker 1)

So I called my mother, told her that. A few days later, she called and said, I found them. The Marine Corps had brought them to the door, handed them to her. She took them to a side closet, put them up on a shelf, and they sat there for a while. years. And so we went over to the house, got the box down, opened it.

0:05:57

(Speaker 1)

His medals were all there. And there was a letter from the Commandant of the Navy awarding Dean the highest award for bravery that they give. And then he told him there how he received it, what he received it for. They were out on a patrol in Vietnam. And they came under sniper attack and grenade launcher attack. And Dean ran from the group and took the fire on himself so that the group could scatter.

0:06:29

(Speaker 1)

And that happened October 31st, 1969. On November 31st, he was killed. His CO sent the message to DC. It was all given, but given posthumously. And we never opened the box, so we never knew that he was a hero for 50 years. So Khoi Rawson did an assembly on Veterans Day.

0:06:58

(Speaker 1)

My mother was able to come. My brother was able to come. I invited a couple of my brothers, my deans, high school friends. The school choir sang, and the superintendent spoke. It was very nice. And they had a plaque made that hangs in the boardroom at Khoi Rawson honoring Dean as the only student from Khoi Rawson to be killed in Vietnam.

0:07:24

(Speaker 1)

That is such an amazing way to honor Dean, and I’m glad that that could happen for him. And I’m so glad you could tell that story, like you were able to see the letter that was sent, to be able to have an understanding. Well, it was such a surprise to all of us because we had no idea going through that. emotion of the death and the funeral and all of that, you’re not thinking of any of those things. And so I can understand, my mom, in her grief, took that box, stuck it on a shelf, forgot it was there, probably got stuck behind something else, and then she found it. Yeah, everybody deals with grief in different ways, but is there anything, like, Did you ever get any letters from Dean when he was in the military that you could share some other stories with us?

0:08:22

(Speaker 1)

I received a lot. I have a stack of letters about that big from Dean when he was in the military. I’ve not looked at them for a long time. I probably should get them out and read them again. But we had a brotherly relationship. And so he would share some things, and I would write and share some things.

0:08:43

(Speaker 1)

And so he, um, yeah, I do have letters. I can’t really share what’s in them. Yeah. Do you know, um, like anything about Dean’s military, like his MOS that he served in? Can you tell us like how long he served for? Well, he was, um, he was in Vietnam for, uh, he was killed at 19.

0:09:10

(Speaker 1)

So he was in Vietnam for a little over a year. He was, he was actually in the first group that President Nixon brought home. He could, he could have come home, but of course they said if you sign up for another another six months we’ll let you out of the military when you get home and you won’t have to finish out your whatever two years or whatever he had signed up for. So he stayed and it was after that that he was killed. And so I know he was in reconnaissance.

0:09:45

(Speaker 1)

I don’t know much detail about it. We were never told much about that. So I just know that based on this explanation that he and his men were out on this mission. assignment, I guess. And they came, the Viet Cong surrounded them. How did life change after his passing?

0:10:12

(Speaker 1)

Well, family life, again, I was out of the house. So my mother has lost three children. And so that impacted her. So I’m not sure in the house what transpired, because I was gone. Two more years, that was my senior year of college, so I graduated in just a few months. And then I went off to my first job, so I wasn’t home during that time.

0:10:50

(Speaker 1)

But when you lose someone in the family, it impacts everybody. And we weren’t told a lot of detail about his death, just minimal things that we were told. And so family dynamics changed just because somebody’s not there anymore. And so my brother and sister could probably respond to that much better because I was no longer in the house at that time. Did you have a grieving process yourself? Oh, of course.

0:11:24

(Speaker 1)

I went through the grieving process. Having lost him, I was in ministry at that time, and so I was doing a lot of speaking out to different places, and I could use Dean’s story for commitment to something, and use it as a part of my challenges in ministry. But personally had to deal with all of that. When I got the call that he had died, I first called Kathy, who later became my wife, and then I called a special faculty member who was invested in me, and she said, meet me at her office. So I met her at her office, and of course, was emotional, and she quoted a verse from Romans, and a lot of believers quote it, all things work together for good, to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose, and she said, But not all things aren’t good.

0:12:39

(Speaker 1)

All things don’t feel good. All things don’t have good outcomes. So we have to read verse 29 that goes with verse 28 to give verse 28 its meaning. For whom he did foreknow he also predestined to be like his son. So all things happen and it’s our response to all things that happen that either make us more like Jesus or less like Jesus. And I’ve used that many times in my ministry.

0:13:15

(Speaker 1)

approach to look at a situation. I had people at Dean’s funeral, you know, come through the line and quote Romans 8 28. And I said, if I hear that verse one more time, all things work together for good. This isn’t good. I don’t feel that it’s good. But she gave me the perspective of the chapter doesn’t stop there.

0:13:40

(Speaker 1)

There’s another verse. And that gives the whole meaning to this verse. And sometimes we do memory work and we only memorize the little things that are the little words for the day. And we fail to see how everything ties together. How do you honor dean today, you specifically? Well, Facebook is a common thing today, so I always post something on his birthday, always post something on Veterans Day, on Memorial Day, to tell his story.

0:14:19

(Speaker 1)

I’ve had several men who served with him contact me, either because of something they saw that I posted, or there’s a site that you can go to and put a person’s name in, and people respond to that. And I’ve had several who’ve responded there to say, I served with him. I appreciated him. He was a good friend. So that gives you the feeling, the reality that beyond our family, he made an impact on people’s lives, which is a way to honor him. It’s really good that you continue to share his story.

0:15:02

(Speaker 1)

Do you pass that on to other family too, like other kids in the family to keep his legacy going? Well, we’ve taken our grandkids to Dean’s grave, talked about him and the sacrifice that he made and the story. So they all know the story. Of course, my kids never knew Uncle Dean, so they only know him because of my sharing with them. And of course, they knew Grandma, so Grandma had stories for them as well. So it’s interesting, maybe more difficult to attach emotionally to someone you’ve not known, but at least they know who he was, what his sacrifice was, and the story behind it.

0:15:59

(Speaker 1)

Great. Thank you for sharing that. I know this is like a very vulnerable situation too for you. What do you hope people can take away from your story, Dean’s story? Well, first of all, life doesn’t end with losing someone. It may feel like it at the moment.

0:16:18

(Speaker 1)

But it’s how we respond to that that will cause us to grow. And as we grow, we appreciate more the life that we that we had lost and what they meant to us, how they impacted our learning early in this case, early in my life, having a brother that we grew up together. And then, of course, people lose people at different ages. But I feel like I’m preaching now. But when we when we lose, we dare not forget that we have to take the reality and what we remember and begin to bring them in and life is new. It’s not going to be the same.

0:17:16

(Speaker 1)

But it is what it is and we have to learn to live and adjust to that. And 50 years later, 55 years later, it’s much easier for me to live with the memory of Dean than it was for the first few years, because it was still raw emotionally. I could still hear his voice. I would read his letters. But then life goes on, and as you move away from the death of a loved one, you begin to ask yourself, what did their voice sound like? What would they say if I told them this?

0:18:10

(Speaker 1)

And so it becomes your reality now, and it’s a different reality than it used to be. But that’s life. Life has exciting, growing times. And it has some disappointing times of loss. And again, I don’t want to preach, but we have to learn to accept both and respond to both so that we become different people, hopefully growing people, understanding people, that God will become a greater reality to us. Because in any disaster that happens, you have one of two options.

0:19:08

(Speaker 1)

You can either shake your fist at God Or you could open up and say, there’s a what for here, but I’m not sure I see it right now. So I’m going to live so that you can show me the what for. And that’s true about every loss, whether it’s military or not. It’s just the reality of who we are as human beings. Kind of go into more detail on how being a Gold Star member correlates to that. To the loss?

0:19:42

(Speaker 1)

Yeah. Well, my mother had her Gold Star banner in her window. and even after she was gone. And so I asked if I could have that, and so it was given to me. So it’s in my window now. It’s difficult, I think, for Gold Star families because the why question that we all have when death comes has a different meaning.

0:20:12

(Speaker 1)

Was this war important? Why was he sent? Why? And when you think of the kinds of things that have happened even recently, with terrorists shooting military, and you say, why? There’s a loss here. So I think a gold star family has an additional element to their grieving with questions that probably aren’t going to be answered.

0:20:46

(Speaker 1)

You may get an answer, but it’s the answer that’s the politically correct thing to say. And that doesn’t always help emotionally to adjust. impacts everyone but a gold star family, siblings, parents. grandparents, grandchildren, doesn’t matter who they are, there’s an additional question that comes to your mind about the wise, I think. On the other side, there’s the pride in knowing that they have served and protected the country that you love. And they were self -sacrificing.

0:21:41

(Speaker 1)

this was the choice that they made. And to balance those two, it’s kind of like this that I talked about. You can either get angry that they died in a way that you have all questions about. Should they have even been there? Should the American military even have participated in that? And on the other side, you say, he was willing to risk for me.

0:22:13

(Speaker 1)

He was willing to risk for you. And so, So you have two sides that I think a Gold Star family has to add to the normal grieving process. What would you say to a family who’s experiencing this fresh in their life or experiencing a loss of a service member? How would you approach them? Well, I probably wouldn’t approach them any differently than I would someone else, but I’d have to have the, I would have the knowledge and the realization that there are different things going on in them. Are you asking me if I approach them personally or if they hear a video?

0:23:04

(Speaker 1)

things should be said on a video that don’t necessarily have the meaning without the relationship, if that makes sense. It does. We can say things, but without the hug, without the warm handshake, without just the quiet spirit. Words don’t have a lot of meaning. Most people dread going to a funeral home and going through the line because they don’t know what to say. They have no idea.

0:23:40

(Speaker 1)

And so we say silly things. We say things that really don’t assist in adjusting or approaching. We quote a scripture because we think it sounds spiritual, like I was speaking about earlier. When really helping someone grieve is putting an arm around them, letting them talk, letting them cry, because it’s the relationship. And in a Gold Star family, that’s no different. If I were talking to another Gold Star family who lost, particularly somebody who lost recently, and it’s fresh and raw, emotional.

0:24:23

(Speaker 1)

The emotion, a quote doesn’t help them. Just listening. The I understand doesn’t help them. That’s a phrase you don’t understand, but you don’t understand the death of anyone. And so we have to be careful that when we approach someone, we realize the depth of their pain, the rawness of the emotion, and it’s relationship that will help them. adjust.

0:25:03

(Speaker 1)

So just to meet someone on the street who’s a Gold Star family is very different than someone you form a relationship with. That can help in the healing. What is a message you would like to share with service members that are currently serving? First of all, thank you for your service. It’s sometimes difficult for those who are not serving to understand what went into the decision. that someone makes to serve.

0:25:42

(Speaker 1)

You know, when there’s no war, active war going on, it may be easier to make that decision. But you never know what’s going to happen in the world and how the U . S. is going to respond to it. And when you give yourself to that, you’re doing something that most people would not do. And so those of us who are living with the reality of your sacrifice, your commitment every day, need to express that to you.

0:26:17

(Speaker 1)

Thank you for the decision you made, how hard it must have been to make that decision, and then to step forward and continue that. I fortunately have a lot of military friends, or ex -military friends now. Now that I’m old, everybody’s younger than me. It’s just good to let them know that we appreciate them. And current military people, thank you. Continue.

0:26:48

(Speaker 1)

We appreciate you. We can’t express enough. to express until they’re and we need to express e anything else you would l it’s about Dean or about as a gold star? Um, no, I covered it. I, um, again, help. And so, um, uh, I c appreciate that God gave we were chosen, chose to put him in my life and in my family.

0:27:38

(Speaker 1)

And the experiences that I’ve had because of his death, the adjustments, the struggles, the why questions that everybody has, we all have to live with. And then 50 years later to discover this was a sacrifice, this was a self -sacrificing thing. And so it just makes me proud. Well, Burr, I really appreciate you sharing your story and Dean’s story, and we definitely thank him for his sacrifice to our country. Thank you for being here. Well, you’re very welcome.

0:28:22

(Speaker 1)

Thank you for inviting me. Of course.