On July 1, 2020, I stumbled across an Ebay listing that lead me to discover the incredible legacy of Doug Hagen, who was the Student Council President in 1964, one year ahead of the Class of 1965.
First the listing:
It is interesting what you can find on eBay. The selling of a rather beat up 1964 Douglas MacArthur Yearbook for $199, plus shipping seemed high. But the listing caught my eye. The listing and description said:
This yearbook features Steve Hunter, Loren Douglas Hagen & Loren Coleman
1964 Douglas MacArthur High School in Decatur, Illinois IL 64
Douglas Hagen was a US ARMY special forces officer who received the Metal of Honor for his act of Valor during the Vietnam War.
Steve Hunter is an American Guitarist (Musician) who worked with Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Mitch Ryder, etc.
Loren Coleman is a cryptozoologist and author who has written over 40 books.
The Yearbook belonged to Larry Swartz, according to the embossed name on the cover.
Steve Hunter
Wikipedia listings and google searching gave instant results on Steve Hunter.
Hunter in March 2013.
Stephen John Hunter was born in Decatur, Illinois, on June 14, 1948, and raised in Decatur. Hunter was in the Class of 1966 at Douglas MacArthur High School, and would have been a sophomore in the 1964 Yearbook.
Hunter is an American guitarist, primarily a session player. As noted in Wikipedia, he has worked with Lou Reed and Alice Cooper, acquiring the moniker "The Deacon." He also worked with Mitch Ryder, Detroit, Peter Gabriel, Julian Lennon, Bette Midler, Tracy Chapman, David Lee Roth, and John Sauter.
While Hunter returned to Decatur during his career, he apparently presently lives "in Altea, Spain, with his wife, Cornish singer/songwriter, Karen Ann Hunter. He suffers from pigmentary glaucoma, which has rendered him legally blind," according to an August 27, 2013 article in Herald de Paris.
Loren Coleman
Also mentioned in the entry is Loren Coleman, a member of the Class of 1965, and someone of whom I'm familiar (here, here, here, and here).
Doug Hagen
The mention of Doug Hagen, Class of 1964, opened up many documents in tribute to a familiar face to several of us. Since his father was name "Loren Douglas Hagen," at MacArthur the younger Hagen was known by "Doug." But online, Hagen is recalled in news articles and Medal of Honor remembrances as "Loren D." or "Loren Douglas Hagen."
Hagen's Wikipedia entry is rather complete, as are his military entries, such as this one.
Lt. Doug Hagen
One of the most moving articles about Doug Hagen was carried in the Decatur Herald and Review, on May 26, 2016. It was written by Theresa Churchill, and is reprinted here so as to be easily available for you to read.
Home at last: Killed in action 48 years ago, Decatur soldier to be laid to rest
DECATUR – You hardly ever saw Alan Boyer without Doug Hagen, each new to MacArthur High School their junior year.
That's how Steve Pyle, another member of the Class of 1964, remembers the two friends, even though they were about as different as they could be.
“Doug was liberal, Al was conservative, and if you were on the student council, it was a big deal,” said Pyle, 69, a photographer who moved from Decatur to Bowling Green, Ky., five years ago. “Our senior year, Doug was president, and Alan was vice president.”
Each promising young life ended tragically in the Vietnam War; Boyer vanishing March 28, 1968, and Hagen killed Aug. 7, 1971, while serving in the same special Army operations unit Boyer had been in.
Hagen wanted to find out what happened to his best friend, but he never did.
Indeed, the first indication Boyer was dead did not come until 1973, when his name did not appear on a list of 591 American prisoners coming home after the war was over.
“They found no blood, no bodies and no personal effects, so I thought, 'OK, he's been taken prisoner,' ” his sister Judi Boyers Bouchard said in a telephone interview from her home in Licklog Ridge, N.C. “For five years, I held onto that hope.”
The mystery “shaped a whole lot” of her life, starting at age 19 when her big brother disappeared and continuing until March 7 of this year, a couple weeks after she turned 67 and on the eve of what would have been her brother's 70th birthday.
The U.S. Army telephoned to say his remains had finally been identified.
“It absolutely knocked the wind out of me,” Bouchard said. “The news is bittersweet, and I wish our parents had lived to see it.”
Charles Boyer, who worked at Borg-Warner when the family lived in Decatur, died in 1994, and Dorothy Boyer, who taught at Brush College School, died in 2013.
The Boyers, originally from suburban Chicago, settled in Rockford after their son graduated from high school in Decatur, and it was in October 1967, during Bouchard's first semester at the University of Montana in Missoula, that she last saw her brother.
It's not surprising she chose the same university he was attending when he decided to enlist in the Army to save the world from communism.
“Alan was the quintessential big brother that I absolutely adored,” she said. “He was the one who taught me how to ride a bike when I was about 4, never believing in training wheels.
“He also taught me how to drive when I was 16.”
Sgt. Alan Boyer and two other soldiers were conducting a reconnaissance patrol in Laos on March 28, 1968, when they encountered an enemy force and radioed for evacuation.
The seven Vietnamese with them escaped safely, but heavy fire forced the helicopter to leave without the three Americans, first listed as missing and later as presumed dead.
Boyer's body, in possession of remains traders in Laos, recently ended up with a peace activist who turned it over to the U.S. government. The Army confirmed his identity by comparing the DNA to samples given many years earlier by his mother and sister.
“I was told it's the strongest DNA match they have ever seen,” Bouchard said. “There is no doubt it's Alan.”
The Army awarded Boyer the Silver Star and Purple Heart posthumously.
Today, Bouchard is preparing to lay her brother to rest on June 22 in Virginia's Arlington National Cemetery, where Hagen is buried, and with full military honors.
“He's probably up there shaking his head,” she said, “but this is what our mom and dad wanted if and when they ever found him. It's going to be a wonderful tribute.”
But Bouchard hasn't forgotten all the other people she met over the years who continue to wonder what happened to their loved ones.
“Please remember all the POW/MIAs who remain unaccounted for,” she wrote to conclude a letter of thanks to friends after her brother was found. “Their families still wait.”
Sgt. Alan Boyer
