POW who dedicated Vietnam War monument in Knoxville dies at 100 | Georgiana Vines

It was a big deal when then Col. Norman Gaddis came to Knoxville on April 28, 1973, to dedicate a monument honoring Knox County and other East Tennessee soldiers who died in the Vietnam War. Gaddis was an American Air Force prisoner of war in North Vietnam for nearly six years in the war that ended on April 30, 1975.

Gaddis was born in Jefferson County, grew up in Knoxville, graduated from Knoxville High School and died at age 100 on Feb. 13 in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he had lived for a number of years. The career Air Force officer became Brigadier General Gaddis in 1974 when he became commander at Williams Air Force Base in Arizona.

The monument he helped dedicate is called the Memorial Eagle, as it resembles a bird in flight. It was dedicated at the old City Hall, now Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law, during the administration of Mayor Kyle Testerman. Testerman and Gaddis had in common the experience of having lost a brother during World War II.

A near replica of the original Memorial Eagle now rests ‒ with names of those honored ‒ in the southwest corner of the lawn at the City County Building. The original was put in storage and mostly destroyed in 1980 when city government offices moved to the building from old City Hall. The present sculpture was redone by the architect and artist Arnold Schwarzbart, who had been part of the GSW architectural team that made the first memorial. Jack Neely of the Knoxville History Project reported in a column in 2017 that Schwarzbart went back to Candora, which had provided the pink Tennessee marble for the first memorial, and was able to get more for the reconstruction. Mary Linda Schwarzbart said Thursday her late husband wouldn’t take payment for the work, but he did get a piece of pink marble that is now a table in their home.

The 1973 ceremony was a somber occasion with Norman E. Helinske, retired Army lieutenant colonel and acting safety director, reading the names of 97 Knox Countians killed in the war. Gaddis said he was honored “to pay homage to the sons of Tennessee who gave their lives so others might live in freedom.”

Testerman also spoke of the sacrifices of those on the battlefield. “The memory of their service is indelibly fixed in our hearts and minds, for their service hands us a legacy that should serve as the truest dedication of the ‘Memorial Eagle,’ which is laid in solemn memory of the brave men who gave their lives during the long years of conflict, to those who suffered wounds during the struggle, to those who endured inhuman incarceration, and to those who served their great nation when she called,” he said.

Gaddis was born to Bruce and Allie Gaddis on a Jefferson County farm, and then they moved to Knoxville. He married his high school sweetheart, Hazel Lee Ketner, in 1945 and they had a son, Steven, born in Knoxville in 1946. At the time he had been discharged but was recalled to active duty in 1949. His wife traveled with him as he was assigned to Neubiberg, Germany; Turner Air Force Base in Georgia; RAF Bentwaters in England; and Wiesbaden, Germany, where the couple’s son, Tony, was born in 1956.

Gaddis was assigned to the 12th Tactical Fighter Wing at Cam Ranh Bay Air Base in Vietnam in November 1966, and on his 73rd combat mission, on May 12, 1967, was forced to bail out of his aircraft near Hanoi, the obituary said. That’s when he became a prisoner of war until his release on March 4, 1973, shortly before coming to Knoxville to participate in the monument dedication ceremony and be honored by the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce. By then his father had died and his mother remarried. She attended the events as Mrs. A.F. Baker of Seymour.

Gaddis and his wife eventually settled in different places in North Carolina and used to come to Knoxville frequently to visit Hazel Gaddis’ sister, Lola Wynn. Both Hazel Gaddis and Lola Wynn are now deceased. Gen. Gaddis is survived by his son, Tony, of Raleigh, and other family members, including nephews and nieces from Knoxville, Hixon and Oak Ridge. His elder son, Steven, passed away on Dec. 12, 2018.

Tony Gaddis said in a phone interview Thursday that his father had come to live with his family for a time at the invitation of a young granddaughter after the death of his wife. “The house was always full of people. They called him granddad and loved him,” he said.

The family received visitors at Hall-Wynne Funeral home in Durham on Feb. 23. Brig. Gen. Gaddis was buried beside his wife in nearby Maplewood Cemetery. A celebration of life will take place at 11 a.m. April 6 at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Durham followed by a reception. The celebration is open to the public.

∎ UPDATE ON SHERIFF: Knox County Sheriff Tom Spangler said Friday he is “doing good” after one treatment for pancreatic cancer, which was diagnosed the previous week. He said it was caught early and he expects to complete his term as sheriff in two years.

He said he is continuing to work except for taking time away during treatment.

“I will curtail public events. I don’t want my immune system to be compromised,” he said.

Spangler is in his second term as sheriff. He was first elected in August 2018 and took office a month later. He worked in the sheriff’s office for decades and was chief deputy under two previous sheriffs. The Knox County Sheriff's Office website says he retired in 2009 to become a professional fisherman but shortly thereafter joined the Blount County Sheriff’s Office and was in charge of training until 2016.

∎ RIP: Senior U.S. District Judge Robert Leon Jordan, appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to succeed Judge Robert L. Taylor, died at age 89 on Feb. 27 in his home in Maryville. This was two months after the death of his wife, Dottie, to whom he was married 67 years.

U.S. District Judge Charles Atchley, a former federal prosecutor, told this columnist that “in many ways, Judge Jordan was a judge’s judge. There was a formality about him but there was also an underlining fairness in everything he did. You had to follow the rules and everything went smoothly. He will be missed.”

Jordan was born in Woodland, Tennessee, served in the U.S. Army from 1954-56, and earned his B.S. in 1958 from the University of Tennessee and his J.D. in 1960 from the UT College of Law. He began his law practice in Nashville and then became a partner in the law firm of Bryant, Price, Brandt, Jordan and Fox in Johnson City in 1971.

In 1980, Gov. Lamar Alexander, a Republican, appointed him to Tennessee’s Chancery Court, and he was elected to a full term in 1982. A release from the District Court clerk’s office said U.S. Rep. James Quillen, a Republican from Kingsport, encouraged him to be a candidate on the federal bench, and a personal relationship with U.S. Sen. Jim Sasser, a Democrat, helped him secure bipartisan support after Reagan, a Republican, nominated him.

Judge Jordan was sworn into office on Nov. 15, 1988, and had served as a senior judge since Nov. 30, 2001. He maintained an active docket until a few months ago.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this column misstated where Col. Norman Gaddis was a prisoner of war.

Georgiana Vines is retired News Sentinel associate editor. She may be reached at gvpolitics@hotmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Georgiana Vines: POW who dedicated Vietnam War monument dies at 100