Ethan Hoagland
Fifty years ago, a young Coast Guard recruit from Sweet Home made his newspaper debut with a modest announcement of his graduation from basic training. Last week, Seaman Richard Lannom shared his story with The New Era.
Lannom’s decision to join the Coast Guard might sound familiar for recruits who enlisted in 1972 – the final, bloody year of direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Struggling in high school, Lannom headed down to the recruitment office.
“I passed their test with flying colors,” Lannom said. “They said, ‘There’s a problem we got.’ I said, ‘What’s that?’ They said, ‘We need a parent’s signature.'”
But Lannom was determined to get the paper signed.
“I said, ‘Okay, gimme the paper.’ I took it home and my mom asked me what classes I got and I said ‘This one.'”
Lannom said there were quite a few other Sweet Home guys enlisting for similar reasons at the time.
Just before his graduation from basic training, a call came down the line for volunteers willing to head over to Vietnam. Lannom was ready to answer the call. But a meeting with his commanding officer changed the course of his life.
“They wanted nine volunteers to go to Vietnam, train to go to Vietnam for river patrol,” Lannom said. “I volunteered. Then I got called up to the commander’s office and he said no, because I was a sole surviving son. My dad was already gone and he said ‘Nope. Can’t send you.'”
Instead, Lannom received papers to send him to a ship in Alaska.
“So I went back to the commander’s office and asked him, I said ‘So you won’t send me to Vietnam because you’re afraid I’ll get shot, but you’ll send me to Alaska so I can freeze to death.’ He just busted up laughing.”
Alaska-bound, Lannom found himself sailing with the Coast Guard Cutter Sorrel.
“I spent two years in Alaska on a ship, taking care of aids to navigation, buoys out in the ocean, fisheries patrols,” Lannom said. “And it was cold.”
Frigid temperatures weren’t the only concern for sailors in Alaska. Lannom recalled the frightening majesty of storms at sea.
“I mean, I’ve seen waves that would go up over the top of the ship,” Lannom said. “They were big.”
After two years fighting the Alaskan cold and sailing all around the state’s coast, Lannom came back to Sweet Home to rekindle a relationship with his high school sweetheart. From there, the Coast Guard sent him over to Newport for another two years.
“When I’d get a weekend off I’d zip right back over here,” Lannom said.
The two of them will celebrate their 48th anniversary later this month.
When his assignment to Newport ended, Lannom said there wasn’t much opportunity to climb the ranks, so he put his service behind him and settled back into Sweet Home. Lannom spent eight years driving a log truck, followed by 10 years at Les Schwab. From there he went to work for Oremet in Albany until he retired about 10 years ago.
Now, he lives in Sweet Home with his wife, Scherry Lannom: the very woman whose romance kept him running back to town any chance he got while assigned to Newport.
Last year, Lannom was one of dozens of area veterans who received a commemoration pin for his service during the Vietnam War.