Joe Urda: memoirs of a renowned Navy corpsman

The Groton American Legion Post 800 is a place where camaraderie among servicemen and veterans of all branches of the United States military abounds. One way to experience that for oneself is the Thursday Grill Night, open to everyone from 5 to 7 p.m.

It was at a recent Grill Night where I had the opportunity to hear about Joe Urda’s military service. I had been told by others that Urda had a unique story to tell. They were right!

Urda is known by many in and around Groton. After his U.S. Navy tour of duty ended in 1969, Urda settled here and has a plethora of involvements where you may have known him.

In no particular order, Urda worked for Hage Real Estate in Cortland; had his own custom furniture business, Old Stage Furnitury; built staircases for 15 years for Barden Homes; was Groton Central School’s first computer coordinator and worked for Wright-Beard Funeral Home in Cortland by virtue of his license as a funeral director and mortician.

Urda grew up in Windsor, New York, along with two brothers and two sisters, and graduated from Windsor Central High School in 1963.

Urda’s father was a master meat cutter and owned the Windsor Market. Urda and his siblings all learned to cut meat and worked in the store a great deal, but Urda also worked at a local funeral home evenings and weekends. That experience was a juncture in Urda’s life that was clearly the beginning of what molded the path for his military career.

Urda gained his licensure from the Simmons School of Mortuary Science and served his apprenticeship at the George H. Scholderer Home for Funerals in Binghamton in 1966 and remained there as an employee.

“I’ll never forget my first paycheck back then,” Urda said. “I made $42.10 and I worked or was on call 24 hours a day seven days a week!”

Urda met his wife, Eileen, while cashing that check. She was a teller at the bank. Things progressed from there, and they were married in May 1967.

“With America’s involvement in Vietnam then, I knew the draft was coming,” Joe said. “Eileen’s brother, Lawrence Hart, was in the submarine fleet in the Navy and convinced me to enlist before that happened. It turned out my draft notice was in the mailbox when I got home that very day, but my Navy recruiter got around it.”

Joe had been poised to take his state exam for embalmer/mortician. Instead, he headed off to boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center (GLNTC) as a hospital corpsman.

“In boot camp, I was put on the Navy drill team as a gun bearer for the Honor Guard,” Joe said.

Joe went from leading parades in the Great Lakes area to attending the Hospital Corps School at GLNTC, which he described as “very intense and much to learn.”

“Vietnam was still going on,” Joe said. “They sent me to the neuropsychiatry tech school at the naval hospital in Philadelphia, where I worked with vets coming back with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) for the next month and a half.”

It was at that pivotal point in Joe’s life when his mortuary background came into play.

“I got a call from Captain William Schrader, the chief of lab services,” Joe said. “He said they needed someone in the autopsy surgical pathology department, so that’s where I went.”

While working there, Joe said he experienced the highlight of his naval career — coming face to face and saluting with Lt. Gen. Lewis Burwell “Chesty” Puller, the most decorated Marine in American history.

“I had just come out from drawing blood from a Marine lieutenant who’d been wounded by a mine explosion, losing both legs and parts of his hands,” Joe said. “When I told some of the guys who I had just seen, they told me the guy I just drew blood from was Chesty’s son, Lewis Puller Jr., and Chesty was on his way in to see him. I’ll just never forget it.”

Not long thereafter, Joe received orders to report to the autopsy department at Dover Air Force Base, but after Eileen had quit her job at the bank and the couple had released their apartment, Schrader canceled the orders because they had no replacement for Joe.

Two more transfer orders for Joe, subsequently canceled by Schrader for the same reason, were for Guam and Kodiak Island, Alaska, but ultimately, Joe received orders for WestPac, California, that stuck.

“We were worried because WestPac included Vietnam, but I got sent to Naval Hospital Far East Mortuary in Yokosuka, Japan, with a temporary assignment at Oakland Mortuary at Travis Air Force Base in between,” Joe said.

Joe was the senior mortician at Oakland and said, “the casualties were brutal.” Joe described the scene as one where “bodies would come off cargo planes prepared for us to put in transfer cases and send back to the USA. I look back at that and think, ‘What a waste!’”

When Joe was in Japan, he recalled that the Navy ship, the USS Pueblo, was captured by North Korea, but the incident that affected him more was on April 15, 1969, when North Korea shot down a Navy reconnaissance plane carrying 31 crew members.

“There were only two bodies recovered in the ocean by a Russian destroyer,” Joe said, “But we got them ready and sent them home.”

Years later, Joe was contacted on Facebook by a woman from Colorado whose father was one of those two recovered Navy crew members. They met at a local Binghamton restaurant.

“She just wanted to thank me for taking such good care of her daddy,” Joe said. “We talked for hours. It was a cathartic experience for both of us, and we still keep in touch to this day.”

Groton on the Inside appears every week in Tompkins Weekly. Submit story ideas to editorial@vizellamedia.com or text or call Linda at (607) 227-4922.

In brief:

J’s Arrays grand opening

J’s Arrays, 211 Main St., will have its grand opening March 5 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. featuring Basil Boutique, B&B This to That, Epicure, Klockwise Creations, Mary Kay and Paparazzi. Full details on this new, exciting and unique shopping experience may be found in the Feb. 9 edition of “Groton on the Inside” (tinyurl.com/yatrtor4).

Craft nights

In addition to its Saturday offerings, J’s Arrays is also hosting craft nights during the week. The first one is from 6 to 8:30 p.m. March 10. Paint with Anna is a guided session to paint “Birds and Bees” on canvas. Cost is $45 per person and includes all supplies, snacks, non-alcoholic beverages, a $5 coupon toward your next J’s Arrays craft night and more.

On March 16 from 6 to 8 p.m., you are welcome to a guided session to create four beautiful, hand stamped cards with Mary Russell. Cost is $30 per person and includes all supplies, snacks, non-alcoholic beverages, a $5 coupon toward your next J’s Arrays craft night and a pint of mint chip or mint cookie ice cream to take home.

Space is limited for each of these sessions. To register or to ask questions, contact Janette at JsArrays211@gmail.com.

Pancakes for breakfast

Our neighbors from the Locke Fire Department will host a pancake breakfast at the Locke Fairgrounds from 7 to 11 a.m. Feb. 27. They will be serving pancakes, French toast, eggs, sausage and beverages. Cost for persons 12 and up is $7.50, senior citizens $7, children 5 to 12 years old $5. Children 4 and under may eat free of charge.