Say the phrases “unsung hero” round Morristown proper now, and also you’re prone to hear “Dave Baker” in response.
Baker, a 77-year-old Vietnam veteran, died this month from blood issues brought on, pals suspect, by wartime publicity to Agent Orange.
His legacy of quiet good deeds — from mowing lawns for ailing neighbors to funding colleges, orphanages and housing in Vietnam–made an enduring impression on a various universe of admirers.
Congressmen, cops, bikers, legal professionals … all of them frequented The Postmark, the Washington Road coin- and stamp store the place Baker shared Vietnamese tea and dialog for greater than 4 many years.
“I feel Dave Baker made us all higher folks. We want extra Dave Bakers on the earth,” stated Morris County Sheriff James Gannon.
Marc Marowitz, proprietor of the previous Morristown Deli, helped Baker acquire medical provides from space hospitals to convey to Vietnam. Gauze, antiseptics, stethoscopes…one yr, there have been 10 trailer masses, he stated.
“He didn’t need recognition,” Marowitz stated. “He did it from his coronary heart…he was an unsung hero.”
“Every journey, he would discover the poorest villager…and he would construct that man a home, from soup to nuts,” stated Ed O’Rourke, a retired Dover police detective who twice accompanied Baker to Vietnam.
“You may see it was a really shifting expertise for him to go over each time,” O’Rourke stated. “He simply felt he needed to give again.”
CORNELL
Baker, a Morristown Excessive College graduate, went to Vietnam in 1967 and was there for the Tet Offensive in ’68. As a canine handler with the Military’s 529th Army Police Firm, he carried out reconnaissance patrols along with his German shepherd, Cornell.
Photograph courtesy of Jimmie Hilliard.
Skilled for ferocity, army canines saved American lives…by visiting savage fury upon the Viet Cong. Baker needed to maintain Cornell caged once they have been off-duty.
After Baker’s tour, Cornell was euthanized. These fearless animals couldn’t be socialized, Baker as soon as defined to this reporter–after refusing to debate his exploits for publication.
Baker wore a tattoo bearing Cornell’s likeness. And he gave that identify to his pet canines, famous John Mills III, a fellow Harley aficionado.
Mills typically accompanied Baker on Sunday group rides to a Vietnamese restaurant close to Little Italy in New York. A “run for rooster soup,” Baker referred to as these scrambles.
Baker threw himself into many pursuits. He was appointed as a particular police officer within the Township, the place he grew up. An professional on weapons, he held a vendor’s license. He collected artifacts of the Lenni-Lenape tribe. Helpful with engines, he babied a 1932 Ford Roadster.
“You may flip to Dave for recommendation on virtually any topic and it might be well-founded recommendation when given. And that man would provide the shirt off his again. Actually,” stated Mills, former municipal lawyer for Morris Township.
Generosity appeared to come back naturally.
“He helped lots of people. If I wanted $500, he would attain in and provides me $500,” stated Jimmie Hilliard, a retired parking attendant who helped Baker at The Postmark.
They bonded when Hilliard was a Scoutmaster many years earlier. Scouts earned advantage badges for coin accumulating in these days.
Speak inside The Postmark wasn’t restricted to numismatics and philately.
“In the event you needed to know what was happening in Morristown, you went in and requested Dave,” stated Linda Coutts Snyder, whose household owns the constructing. “He was greater than life. All people liked him.”
Hilliard, a Democrat, liked verbal jousting along with his pal, a Republican with a comfortable spot for the late tough-guy actor John Wayne. “All of the Vietnam guys liked the Duke,” Hilliard stated with amusement.
State Assemblywoman Aura Dunn (R-Twenty fifth Dist.) got here to know Baker when she labored across the nook for then-Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen.
Dunn’s father, a Marine, was wounded within the battle of Khe Sanh. Speaking with Baker “was very comforting,” she stated.
Baker was beneficiant along with his elbow grease, too.
Glenn Coutts Jr’s daughter was stricken with leukemia in 1994.
“Out of nowhere, Dave simply started slicing our garden each week, for a season or two,” Coutts stated. “He by no means accepted any type of compensation, reimbursement or return of favor.”
Generally, Baker even felt compelled to mow the grass across the Thomas Paine statue at Burnham Park, in line with retired postal service John Viola.
A WEDDING TO REMEMBER
Baker gained a Harley in a raffle. A newspaper account says he Harleyed to his wedding ceremony–certainly among the many extra colourful nuptials of 2006.
Dozens of Baker’s biker brethren lined the historic Morristown Inexperienced on that September Saturday for his marriage to Nguyen Thi Ha Thanh. The couple had met on certainly one of Baker’s civilian journeys to Vietnam. She helped him discover Vietnamese households who wanted homes.
Superior Court docket Decide Kenneth MacKenzie officiated on the ceremony.
He remembers an unlimited, considerably “sketchy” throng in entrance of the Patriot’s Farewell fountain.
“I’ve accomplished a number of outside wedding ceremony ceremonies, and other people maintain a distance from the bride and groom. Right here, all people…was proper up tight with Dave and Miss Ha,” the decide, now retired, recounted with fun.
Baker would convey his spouse’s daughter and grandson to stay with them in America. He additionally created a compound in Vietnam, and went twice yearly till the pandemic and his declining well being fmade journey inconceivable, Hilliard stated.
The veteran began his Vietnam pilgrimages in 1995. He needed “to place some issues to relaxation, to reply some questions,” he advised The Day by day Report in 2006.
“Dave noticed a number of issues in Vietnam he didn’t wish to discuss,” Randy Block, a fellow coin collector, advised Morristown Inexperienced.
The film Platoon bought it proper, Baker acknowledged to Block. Past that, nothing. Block acknowledged that steely silence — from Holocaust survivors in his circle of relatives.
Block choked up slightly when discussing Baker.
For 2 years, when Block’s thoughts was fogged from kidney dialysis, “he referred to as me every single day.”
Block was repaying the favor as Baker underwent transfusions in current months. “Whenever you return to Vietnam, I’d prefer to go together with you,” Block advised him.
“He stated ‘Yeah, we are able to do a number of issues,’” Block recollected.
“I assumed he had one other yr.”
ELEPHANTS AND OSTRICHES
These Vietnam journeys have been fun-filled adventures, in line with those that tagged alongside.
Ed O’Rourke, a fellow motorcyclist and former cop, went in 1998 and 2011.
He bought a style of Baker’s humorousness on his first night time in nation. Baker advised his pal that custom required the brand new man to purchase dinner. Their get together included a couple of dozen folks. They savored shrimp and eels at an outside barbecue place.
Baker inspired all people to order plate after plate.
“He’s laughing. I’m sweating bullets,” associated O’Rourke, who feared he would blow all his journey money on his first night in Vietnam. “On the finish of the night time they bring about the invoice, and this invoice simply has astronomical numbers on it.”
When O’Rourke’s rollicking dinner mates transformed Vietnamese dong into U.S. {dollars}, the tab got here to $20 — together with “a ripping tip.”
Years later, within the mountains at Lang Biang, O’Rourke and his spouse loved an elephant journey by way of the jungle. Upon their return, Baker goaded O’Rourke and a buddy.
“In the event you’re actual males, you’ll journey this,” Baker advised them, pointing to an ostrich.
Chris Walsh, who was a Denville cop, saddled up first. It was a tough journey.
“I’m pondering it’s actually humorous, until it’s my flip,” O’Rourke stated. “This factor is throwing me right into a corrugated metal wall attempting to get me off its again. And Baker is over within the nook laughing his — off. I’ve by no means seen my spouse snort so laborious in her life.”
Nevertheless it was Baker’s charity that actually opened O’Rourke’s eyes in Vietnam.
Baker purchased truckloads of rice for folks. He sponsored an overhang at a preschool, so kids may play exterior when it rained.
He erected a temple. Photos of Baker’s late mother and father, and of a soldier with whom he served, are hanging there. It’s the place Baker needed his ashes to relaxation, stated O’Rourke.
Pals on these journeys nervous about Baker’s well being; they hatched plans for him to get medical care within the Philippines if wanted, O’Rourke stated.
Baker had critical well being issues for 30 years, and battled with the Veterans Administration for incapacity standing, in line with Mills.
Soldiering on, Baker took higher care of these round him than of himself, pals stated. He clashed with nurses and medical doctors.
“They’d inform him what was mistaken with him. He would say ‘No, I do know my physique,’” Jimmie Hilliard stated.
When phrase got here this month that Baker was fading, O’Rourke drove up from his Florida house in simply over 18 hours. He was with members of the family at Baker’s bedside when he died at house on July 14.
Baker had refused hospice care and ache meds, regardless of O’Rourke’s pleading.
“This man went out about as laborious as anyone may exit,” he stated.
It was a protracted drive again to Florida for O’Rourke.
“What a loss, man,” he stated. “What an excellent human being. They only don’t make ’em like that man anymore.”
A memorial service is anticipated for the autumn.
David C. Baker is survived by his spouse Nguyen Thi Ha Thanh, his stepdaughter Yuen, and his step grandson Cun; a sister, Patricia Baker Omli (Allan); nephews Douglas, Craig and Steven Omli; niece Susan Omli; and a brother Frank C. Baker (Phyllis). He was predeceased by his father and mom, Frank and Hazel Baker.
