Butler native’s death emblematic of Vietnam War
Paul Edward Angert is just one of 60 young men from the Butler area who sacrificed their lives during the war in southeast Asia. His name and those of 59 other heroes are immortalized on the Vietnam Memorial in Butler’s Diamond Park.
Angert’s story is representative not only of our local fallen soldiers but also of the 58,000 others from across the nation. Each deserves to have their stories told. Each were more than just a name. Each had family and friends who loved them and who would forever feel their loss.
“Paulie” as his family called him, grew up in a modest, tidy house at 110 Madison Ave. in Butler’s Island neighborhood. He was the son of Pullman Standard worker Paul “Tucker” Angert and his wife, Antoinette Lanzalacco.
The couple had endured an unimaginable tragedy just few years before Paulie was born. His parents firstborn, 2 ½-year-old son Billy, drowned in the Connoquenessing Creek that once flowed around their Island neighborhood. The toddler had been last seen at 4:30 p.m. April 27, 1950. After a massive search by the Butler community, little Billy’s lifeless body was discovered three days later floating in the creek’s dark, unforgiving waters.
One can imagine the joy the Angerts felt when their second son, Paul Edward Angert, greeted them on Aug. 15, 1951. The newborn quickly replaced the cruel silence that had inhabited their home.
The only child thrived growing up on the Island with his parents while being surrounded by a close-knit extended family that included his grandparents, aunt and uncle, and cousin Linda Dublin.
As Linda remembers, “Paulie loved to ride his bike and enjoyed teaching his adoring younger cousin how to catch crayfish in the waters of the Connoquenessing.”
Like most boys growing up in his neighborhood during the 1950s and ’60s, young Paulie spent many fun times after school at the old Island Playground. During the warm nights of summer, he enjoyed competing with his friends in Butler’s inter-playground competitions, where he was known as a very fast runner.
On the weekends his entire extended family gathered to dine together on Friday nights at Serventi’s Restaurant. His cousin Linda recalls, however, “How much she and Paulie preferred going to the Chestnut Street Inn with the grownups for supper on Saturday nights.” It was every kid’s dream she fondly remembers “because she and Paulie were allowed to have all the pop and potato chips they wanted.”
Sundays were for church. The Angert’s neighbor Kathy Marx-Stroup reminisced of “Paulie walking she and her brother to Sunday school each week.” Her mother’s fondness for this wonderful young man years later helped to raise money for the original memorial to him at the Island Playground.
Childhood summers passed and Paul Angert’s teenage passions turned to girls, cars, (especially his favorite, a GTX), and rock ‘n’ roll. Sometimes Paulie would take his cousin Linda along with him to pick up his dates. She would be in the back seat when the young man would politely open the car door for his date.
In her mind, Linda can still see “the nasty stares from these young ladies as they stepped into the car and spied her in the back.” Displaying a playful sense of humor, the teenage lothario would wait about 10 minutes before he would explain to the suspicious girl in the front seat that the pretty girl in the backseat was his cousin, and he was just dropping her off.
When not chasing girls, Paul played the drums and guitar in a rock ‘n’ roll band during the Beatles era with his two Island friends, Norman and Mitchell Saleet. They called themselves D and J. Norman, who would later move to California and compose the No. 1 hit song for Air Supply “Here I Am,” credited his ’60’s bandmate with “being the band’s inspiration and that Paulie always picked them up when they got discouraged.”
In addition to being a good band mate, Paulie was a good friend in other ways, too. When one of his buddies needed a car, Paul lent him his.
The friend unfortunately wrecked it, and Paul was afraid to come home. His frantic parents desperately pleaded on Butler’s WISR radio station for their only surviving child to please come home. Finally, four days later Paul returned home to parents so relieved that his father didn’t even punish him.
Shortly after graduating from Butler High School in 1969, Paul felt the desire to serve his country in the Vietnam War. Ignoring Tucker and Antoninette’s opposition, the only child enlisted for two years in the United States Marine Corps on July 25.
The new Marine, along with the rest of the Pittsburgh Pirates Platoon with whom he had enlisted, were guests of the baseball team when they played the Houston Astros on July 26, 1969. The next morning, before heading to Parris Island, S.C., the newly commissioned Private First Class not only said his last goodbye to his parents, but also to his high school sweetheart and the love of his life, Cindy Murphy.
The young couple had dreams of being married when his two years of military service were up and then possibly moving to California to join his former bandmates Norman and Mitchell Saleet. Sadly, the two high school sweethearts would never see each other again.
Paul E. Angert, as part of the U.S. Marine Corps' 1st Division, arrived in Vietnam in January 1970. The young soldier had only been in the jungles of Southeast Asia for three months when a friend asked Paul if he would take his “point duty” the night of April 28, 1969.
According to official military records, “while a squad of men were on their way to a night ambush position near Mau Hoa hamlet in Que Son District, a Marine ‘on point’ tripped a wire, triggering an explosion wounding himself and another man. In response to a call for assistance, a squad with Pfc.1st Class Paul E. Angert ‘on point’ were heading towards the injured men. They also tripped a wire triggering an explosion resulting in additional casualties. Before he could be evacuated for urgent medical treatment, PFC Angert died of the multiple fragmentation wounds he had sustained.”
A few days later, a Marine Corps major was waiting for Paul’s father when he finished his shift at Pullman Standard. He had the sad duty to inform Tucker Angert of the loss of his only surviving son. The telegram officially confirming the brave soldier’s death arrived at Angerts’ home the next day. The devastated family had a hard time believing that their beloved Paulie was gone because letters from him continued to arrive from Vietnam well after his flag draped casket had been returned home.
Following his funeral, 19-year-old Paul E. Angert was laid to rest in the Butler Memorial Park Cemetery. Today, he rests with his parents and the brother he never knew by his side.
In 2014, a new monument was dedicated in the Island’s Rotary Park replacing the previous memorial erected at the abandoned Island Playground where Paulie had spent the wistful days of his youth. Through the efforts of Eagle Scout Justin Ellis, retired Sgt. Maj. Sam Zurzolo and Butler resident Jerry Puff, a beautiful stone monument, guarded by small American flags, ensures the sacrifice made by one of Butler’s Island neighborhood’s own will not be forgotten.
Bill May of Butler is a historian, speaker and tour guide.
