Former Kosciusko County Judge Loren K. Collier poses in front of a military truck and holds an M-14 in Vietnam.

FORT WAYNE — Shawn Collier of Fort Wayne was 10 years old when he came home from school and saw his mother in tears in the kitchen.

It was May of 1967 and Collier’s mother had just read a letter sent by the eldest of her five sons declaring that he had left college, where he was studying law, to join the Marines.

“I remember coming home from elementary school and seeing my mom in the kitchen with her best friend and she was bawling her eyes out,” said Collier. His older brother, Loren K. Collier, left Indiana University and was already enlisted when his parents received the letter.

Like the lyrics of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s anthem “Fortunate Son,” which wouldn’t be written by John Fogerty for another two years, the eldest Collier told his parents in his letter that he struggled with the realization that his freedom was being paid for by many Americans who were less blessed than he; and that young men his age, who had no other option than to head into harm’s way to the jungles of Southeast Asia, were the primary bearers of his own liberty’s price tag.

“Every day I read in the paper where some 18 for 19-year-old kid has been killed fighting for his country in Vietnam,” wrote Collier, known by friends and family as Kenny. “And then, I must ask myself why these few have been selected to do the fighting for all the rest of us. Sometimes at night, as I lie in bed, I can’t help but ask myself what kind of justice would determine which man must fight for his country merely on the basis of whether he is fortunate enough to attend college or university. And I can only answer that there is no justice in such decisions.”

Judge Loren K. Collier

When the Fort Wayne native left his Bloomington classroom and voluntarily raised his right hand to pledge his service to the U.S. military, he was in his second year of law school. He would join the fighting in Vietnam as a combat radioman in Phu Bai from April 21, 1968 to April 5, 1969. Collier served his enlistment and returned to college years later.

According to his brother Shawn, Kenny’s stint in the Marines opened new doors and high-paying offers to work for the government were politely turned down. Instead, the combat veteran, who had already been unknowingly given a future death sentence by an invisible enemy call Agent Orange, took a job with a Warsaw law firm and later served on the bench as a Kosciusko County judge.

The Vietnam War and the role the United States played in that conflict has been the source of debate and controversy since the early 1960s when U.S. military advisors first landed in the embattled Indochina nation.

For Kenny Collier, the need for U.S. involvement wasn’t political. It wasn’t a cause for national shame. It boiled down to the affinity he had for the little guy — the underdog.

“There was this kid in our school that Kenny always talked to,” said Shawn. “His name was Mark Judge and Kenny always took time to talk to him. Later, Mark got drafted and some time later, he was killed over there. Him going over there and losing his life is what really stirred my brother up and caused him to join the Marines.”

For the eldest Collier, South Vietnam was like a lonely school kid sitting alone at the bus stop. That country’s freedom depended on someone sitting down and starting up a conversation — or, in literal terms, turn back the onslaught of the Communists to the north.

“If people would quit looking at the world as though each country were a separate entity, and instead see the world as half slave and half free, they would realize that when any country loses its freedom it is subtracted from the side of freedom and added to the side of slavery,” Collier wrote in that 1967 letter.

“I cannot, with a clear conscience, be in my nice clean bed at night, eat three square meals a day and take time off whenever I’m in the mood when I realize that halfway across the world, at this very moment, some guy my age is sloshing through a muddy, steamy, mosquito-infested swamp eating a can of K-rations and working 23 hours a day.”

Collier’s decision to suspend his college education and don a military uniform did not result in his death by gunshot or shrapnel wounds. However, he eventually made the ultimate sacrifice and it came years after he boarded a plane and left the stifling humidity of the Vietnam jungle forever.

Collier served on the bench of Kosciusko County Court, having been given the oath of office by then Gov. Otis R. Bowen. He presided over the court from Oct. 13, 1977 to Aug. 10, 1979. He died at the age of 35 due to complications from Agent Orange on Nov. 27, 1980. He left behind a wife and two daughters. Collier’s eldest daughter Kelly followed in her father’s footsteps by attending law school in Bloomington. Today, she lives in Michigan. Collier’s youngest daughter Chandra is married and lives in New York state. Collier has three grandchildren.

“I was so proud of him,” said Shawn of his older brother while choking back tears. “I have his corporal bars on my motorcycle jacket.”

Collier’s service will likely be a topic of discussion in Warsaw for the next several days as the town honors Vietnam veterans with several events beginning today, May 31, and running through the weekend. Collier’s uniform, as well as a presentation of photographs he took while in Vietnam, are on display at the Kosciusko County Historical Society museum. Included in the events over the next couple of days will be the appearance of the Vietnam memorial traveling wall and a memorial ceremony on Sunday. Shawn Collier said he plans to attend.

The mother of Kenny and Shawn Collier wept at her kitchen table as she learned, after the fact, that her eldest son had joined one of the world’s most storied fraternities. In his letter, there was talk of unassuming patriotism, duty to protect the less fortunate and even a message to the woman’s other boys like Shawn, who still remembers his brother with the same pride he felt more than 50 years ago in that gloomy Fort Wayne kitchen.

“Tell my brothers they are welcome to anything that I have that may be of use to them,” Kenny wrote. “Tell them to work hard in school, and that I pray to God this awful war is over by the time they are old enough to serve.”