Chaney High grad to be inducted into Ohio Military Hall of Fame

The Chaney High School graduate was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross.

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — Richard “Doc” Powell, a Navy Corpsman killed in Vietnam in 1968 while working to save wounded Marines, will be inducted into the Ohio Military Hall of Fame for Valor.

Powell, who was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his actions the day he died, will be a member of the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2010. The ceremony is set for 11:30 a.m. May 7 on Ohio Veterans Plaza on the east side of the Statehouse in Columbus.

The Navy Cross is the highest military honor presented by the Navy and second only to the Medal of Honor in this country.

Powell is buried in Lake Park Cemetery on Midlothian Boulevard in Boardman, and, until last August, his gravestone didn’t carry the Navy Cross designation.

Some of the Marines with whom he served became aware of the missing information and launched a campaign to get the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to provide a new stone.

On Aug. 29, those Marines, some whose lives he saved, and some of his 1965 Chaney High School classmates and his family gathered at the cemetery to unveil a new stone with the Navy Cross designation.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.