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Wednesday, November 11, 2015

City of Ketchum
Were Moving Snow
If you have landscaping rocks, planters or other items
in the citys right-of-way, please remove them to allow
for city snow removal and storage. For property owners
placing snow poles, they must be 18 from the edge of
the road. Please DO NOT USE steel snow poles. They
are a danger to pedestrians, cause damage to snow
removal equipment and will be removed.

Keep Your Sidewalks Clear

As the snow falls, sidewalks must be kept clear. Owners
and occupants of property in the city must remove
snow the same day, or within the first 6 hours of
daylight after the snowfall. Thanks for keeping our
walkways safe!

Request for Proposals

Access request for proposals at ketchumidaho.org/rfp
for installation and maintenance of hydration stations
on city property. Deadline: 5 p.m., Friday, Dec. 4, 2015.

City Offices Closed Today

Offices will be closed Wed., Nov. 11, for Veterans Day.

Public Meetings
CITY COUNCIL MEETING
Monday Nov. 16 5:30 pm City Hall
Discussions will include approval of ordinance allowing
camping in city limits, taxi regulation modifications and
Thunder Spring development agreement.
PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION MEETING
Monday Nov. 23 5:30 pm City Hall

Keep Up With City News

Visit ketchumidaho.org to sign up for email notifications, the City
eNewsletter and to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Email comments to participate@ketchumidaho.org.

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Courtesy photo by NationalFuneralVideo.com

A caisson bearing the casket of Col. Ed McGowan leads a funeral procession through Arlington National Cemetery on
Monday, Nov. 9.

McGowan served 2 tours in Vietnam War

Continued from Page 1
Former Army Chief of Staff,
Secretary of State and Secretary
of Defense George C. Marshall
was buried at Grave 8198 in Section 7.
Gen. Omar Nelson Bradley,
a commander of U.S. forces in
France after the D-Day invasion
in World War II, is buried in
Grave 428 1-2 in Section 30.
Robert S. McNamara, secretary of defense under Presidents
John F. Kennedy and Lyndon
Johnson, is buried at Grave 1233A in Section 2. Kennedy is buried
in Section 45.
Col. Edgar McGowan was laid
to rest at Grave 1547 in Section
55 shortly after 9 a.m. Monday
morning.
It was a fitting end to a life that
featured more than three decades
of military service, including
tours in some of the defining conflicts of the 20th century.
It was a burden he carried
with him; he withheld many aspects of his war experiences from
his family and those closest to
him, Liz McGowan said.
He didnt talk about it that
much, she said. It was kind of
hard. He would go to a point of
talking about it, but not in great
detail. We always wondered what
was behind that wall.
Still, it did not deprive him of
happiness, and he found joy living in the Wood River Valley. He
moved to Ketchum in 1991, and
met Connie on Christmas Day in
1993.
He loved to go cross-country
skiing and bicycling in the valley,
as well as being in the community
of veterans here. He volunteered
at St. Lukes Wood River hospital,
the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, at the American Legion Post,
on the Blaine County Recreation
Districts ski patrol, and with the
U.S. Forest Service.
He was also a mainstay at
Catholic mass services on Sundays, OConnor said.
Im just very proud of him,
Connie McGowan said. Ed was
the most content man I knew.
He loved his life here. He was at
peace with God and the world.

A military life
McGowan was born in Fram-

ingham, Mass., in 1922. He felt a

call to serve after the bombing of
Pearl Harbor in December 1941,
and enlisted in the Army to fight
in World War II in early 1942. He
was 20 years old.
He served in the 11th Airborne
Division, and fought in the successful campaign to liberate the
Philippine Islands from Japanese
control in 1944.
His division made an amphibious landing on the island of
Leyte, which was the site of one
of the most famous moments of
the war: Gen. Douglas MacArthur walking ashore and fulfilling
a promise he made two years earlier to return to the Philippines.

Im just very proud

of him. Ed was the most
content man I knew.
He loved his life here. He
was at peace with God
and the world.
Connie McGowan
Ed McGowans wife

The division conducted operations and fought through June

1945, helping to liberate Manila
and the Los Banos prison camp,
which held 2,000 American and
European prisoners, according to history of the divisions
deployment.
After that, the 11th Airborne
was moved to Okinawa. The war
ended with Japanese surrender
in August 1945.
Years later, McGowan returned to Okinawa with his family. They visited beaches where
U.S. forces had made landings,
Liz McGowan said.
After the war ended, McGowan used the G.I. Bill to attend
Brown University, graduating in
1950. He returned to military service to fight in the Korean War,
becoming a commissioned officer
and choosing the military as a career path.
In the mid-1950s, McGowan
joined the nascent Special Forces,
and was among the first to receive the Green Beret. McGowan
always felt a special connection to

President Kennedy, and not just

because they were both Catholics
from Massachusetts.
Although the Special Forces
predated Kennedys presidency,
he authorized additional forces
and made the Green Beret its
symbol. He wrote that the beret
was to be a symbol of excellence,
a badge of courage, a mark of distinction in the fight for freedom.
In the 1960s, McGowan was
stationed in North Carolina at
Fort Bragg and teaching at a special military school, which would
later bear Kennedys name. He
taught escape and evasion tactics
to help keep soldiers from being
captured.
He was distraught by Kennedys assassination in 1963, but
cherished the opportunity to
meet Bobby Kennedy, who came
to Fort Bragg to speak.
He was just devastated,
Liz McGowan said of Kennedys assassination. It was
heartbreaking.
McGowan was a military adviser in Vietnam near the start of
U.S. involvement, with the aim of
quashing communist insurgents.
As the conflict escalated to
war, he would serve two tours
with the 5th Special Forces
Group. He was deployed in Laos,
a neighbor to Vietnam, and was
assigned to disrupt the flow of the
enemy supply-line that was moving along the Ho Chi Minh Trail,
Connie McGowan said.
She said Ed, by that time the
commanding officer of his unit,
would look the other way as his
men handed some of their supplies to local civilians.
Having witnessed so much
tragedy and suffering from war,
McGowan developed a special affability with children.
He saw how much they suffered during the war, Connie
McGowan said. He liked to stop
children wherever we were and
tell the girls how pretty they
were.
By the late 1960s, public sentiment began to shift against the
Vietnam War, and Liz McGowan
said she could see that wear on
her father when he returned
home.
He was very careful about
what he told, she said. You reSee McGowan, next page