HAWTHORN, Pa (EYT) – Specialist Frank Walls of Hawthorn had plans for his life but gave his all in service to his country 34 years ago.
(The U.S. Route 322 Frank James Walls Memorial Bridge over the Clarion River. Photo by Dave Cyphert of ProPoint Media Photography)
His name is listed on a memorial in Carbon, Pa., honoring 13 members of the 14th U.S. Army Reserve’s 14th Quartermaster Detachment, based in Hempfield Township, who were killed in 1991 by an Iraqi Scud missile in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
A memorial ceremony is held every year on February 25 as families and survivors return to remember the 1991 missile attack that killed 13 soldiers from the Greensburg reserve unit.
Ted Minich, Frank’s stepfather, remembers the first time he met Frank, who was in high school and went to Harrisburg with a friend for state police week. They were marched around and saw what state troopers go through on the job.
After Ted’s first wife died, he met Frank’s mother, Sally, and they married in 1990.
“The next time I saw Frank, he was returning from Korea,” Minich said. “He spent a year over there, and after his two years of active service, he wanted to continue with the reserves. He attended IUP in Kittanning and completed a year. He joined the reserve unit near Kittanning because it was closed. At the end of his first year, he was called up by the reserve unit for duty in Saudi Arabia.”
While Ted has attended the memorial service in the past, he wasn’t able to visit this year.
According to published reports, 20-year-old Walls was one of 13 members killed in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm when an Iraqi Scud missile hit the unit’s barracks near Dhahran on February 25, 1991. Along with Walls, 27 others perished, and 37 members of the 14th Quartermaster were wounded. Operation Desert Storm was a five-week U.S. military operation in which troops were deployed to expel Iraqi soldiers from Kuwait. The conflict ended on February 28, 1991, just three days after the Scud missile attack.
Four years after his death, Pennsylvania lawmakers officially renamed the Clarion River Bridge along Route 322 the Frank James Walls Memorial Bridge.
“Redbank High School still awards an annual cash scholarship in honor of Frank,” Minich said.
“It was absolutely devastating when I first heard the news,” said Barry Shilling, a friend and fellow 1988 Redbank Valley High School graduate. “He had only been in Saudi Arabia five days before he died.”
“Everybody loved Frank,” Shilling continued, recalling many good memories from high school, especially their senior year. “You would be hard-pressed to find somebody who didn’t like Frank.”
Shilling marked the 25th anniversary of Walls’ death in 2016 with an even longer trek, continuing his walk from Walls’ grave to the Frank Walls Bridge in Clarion, totaling about 25 miles.
“Frank was a squad leader, and he expected a promotion to sergeant shortly after arriving for duty about 200 miles from the Saudi-Kuwait border,” states a March 6 news article remembering Walls. “The unit had been assigned to the temporary barracks in a warehouse near Dhahran to await their equipment’s arrival and get used to the arid desert climate. Most of the group was probably sitting down to eat dinner only five days after arriving when a stray Iraqi scud warhead hit the building.”
In addition to his military service, Walls was a member of the Hawthorn Volunteer Fire Company, the Hawthorn Rod and Gun Club, the Eagles Club of New Bethlehem, and Oakwood Presbyterian Church.
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