McCallie School military veterans will join McCallie students on Monday for a Veterans' Day ceremony in which McCallie senior Duke Richey, Jr. and his father, Dr. Duke Richey, a McCallie history teacher, will give a special tribute to a McCallie alumnus who was killed in the Normandy Invasion during World War II.
Last summer, Dr. Richey and his son visited Normandy where Duke Richey, Jr., who had done research on the McCallie soldier, read a eulogy at the gravesite of Fred Wallace.
“We feel like we’ve come to know Freddy,” said Dr.
Richey, “and we want to share his story with McCallie students during Veterans’ Day.”
Mr. Wallace, a boarder from Baltimore, Md., was a 1939 graduate of McCallie, and continued as a post-graduate student in 1940. After McCallie, he enrolled at the University of Virginia, but soon dropped out to join the military. Soon thereafter, he was killed in the Normandy Invasion. He was the son of a major general in the army and upon hearing of the death, General George Patton wrote a personal letter of condolence to General Wallace and his wife.
Dr. Richey, ’86, who holds the Sen. Howard Baker Chair of American History at McCallie, and Duke Richey, Jr. became interested in Mr. Wallace’s life and heroic death when Duke Richey, Jr. was one of 15 high school students in the country to be selected by the Albert Small Normandy Institute at George Washington University to do research on soldiers who were in the battle, and go along with their teachers to the battlefield. According to Dr. Richey, it was the first time that a father-son combination had been accepted into the program. At the gravesite, Duke Richey, Jr. gave a short eulogy based on their research of Mr. Wallace.
Members of the Wallace family have been invited to Monday’s ceremony and are expected to attend.
In addition, McCallie has invited all local McCallie alumni who are military veterans to attend the presentation. After the Chapel presentation, they will be the guests of honor at a luncheon with Dr. Richey and Duke Richey, Jr.