Obituary For William Meadon Van Antwerp Jr.

This was sent to me by a relative – Bill Van Antwerp.  It’s a biography that will accompany a picture their having commissioned at Skull & Bones to be placed at Yale. [Updated 5/31/21 with other information that I have on him.]

William Meadon Van Antwerp Jr was born in Albany, NY February 27, 1937, the son of Colonel William Meadon Van Antwerp and Marian Ericson Van Antwerp.

He attended Fishburne Military School from September 1950 through graduation in May 1954.  He graduated with honors.

In the Fall of 1954 he attended Yale University, attending the NROTC and graduated as Second Lieutenant in the Marine Corps.  While attending Yale University, he was President of his Fraternity, Zeta PSI, an honor student, Editor of the school newspaper. [I believe he also played football at Yale.]

Upon graduation, he attending military training at Quantico, VA and was then stationed at Kaneohe Marine Corps Base on Oahu, Hawaii.

He met his wife Helen Colosimo in Hawaii and they were married in December 1960.

On his second tour in Viet Nam, Bill was killed, leaving behind his wife, Helen, and two sons, William and Bradley.

He is buried at Arlington Cemetery.

From another site, it lists the following commendations including a purple heart:

Here’s a picture someone shared with me of a relative touching the Vietnam Memorial in DC with his name on it.

***Updated

I found this article from 1999 which I had to add here.

A veteran remembers a friend 

• BY JAMES A. MEROLLA / SUN CHRONICLE STAFF
• Aug 14, 1999

NORTH ATTLEBORO — Sgt. Thomas `Doc’ Rubel of Baker Street, Seekonk, was a “ short-timer.”

In the parlance of GIs in Vietnam, that meant Rubel only had a few days or weeks to go to finish his tour of danger — fighting a war in a foreign land — before being sent home. Short-timers weighed each second like a minute, each minute like an hour, each hour, a day.

In September 1967, in Da Nang province, Rubel could count the days until he would join several other buddies from his 1st Marines 3rd Amtrack Battalion heading stateside. One of them was his superior officer, Capt. William M. Van Antwerp Jr.

Van Antwerp was the commanding officer of an adjacent company, but in a difficult ground advance operation which required several units to move together, as well as apart, Van Antwerp was Rubel’s C.O. If all went well over the last few days of the tour, Van Antwerp would be joining Rubel in a plane winging its way over the oceans to home.

“ We went over together as a unit, but we came back as our times (length of tour) were up,” Rubel said a day after laying a letter of tribute at the foot of Van Antwerp’s name on the Vietnam Moving Wall Monument which stands firm in the middle of its one-week stay at North Attleboro High School. Rubel had joined a dozen other veterans from North Attleboro in setting up the Wall on Tuesday. He has returned to it like a clarion call every day since.

Rubel said Van Antwerp saved him not once, but twice.

“ I was a short-timer. Captain Van Antwerp, he wouldn’t let me go out in the field. Me, or the other short-timers. I said to him, `Yeah, but you are, too.’ He said, `Let me worry about that.’ ” Rubel said. “ That’s the first time he saved me.”

Just a day or so later, trucks filled with some Marines went out on a refueling mission. The lead truck hit a mine in the fields, which detonated. Van Antwerp, in the second truck, got out to investigate, walking ahead, keeping his men away.

“ He stepped on an anti-personnel mine. We came back together, all right. Him in a coffin and me in a seat,” Rubel said. “ He was my captain. He saved me twice.”

Rubel returned to the Moving Wall Friday night with another mission. He is taking advantage of the computers and software programs in one of the five tents in the fields to try to locate the missing (but presumed alive) members of his Platoon #302, who were shipped out of Paris Island, N.C., three decades ago.

“ I’m trying to get a handle on where they all are,” Rubel said. “ I’m going to look through the platoon book. I left a lot of buddies over there. I haven’t been over to the Wall in D.C. This sort of helps and prepares me for that. I know I’ll break down there.”

Rubel said it was a great honor to help the locals erect the Wall this week.

“ I’ve got a few (buddies) on the Wall,” he said. “ I’m checking on them now. It’s a brotherly thing.”