Vietnam Medal of Honor recipient

Hoping to be drafted by MLB, got Army instead

Kenneth E. Stumpf was working the late shift at a Wisconsin printing factory in 1965, the year he turned 21, and the year he hoped that he might be drafted to play professional baseball. When he wasn't at work, Stumpf played for a minor league team in Menasha that a scout had been eyeing.

Stumpf went to bed after work, he recalled years later to the Hawaii Reporter, half-jokingly telling his mother to wake him if any draft letters came. Not long after he had fallen asleep, his mother roused him. There was a draft letter — not from a Major League Baseball team, but from the U.S. Army.

Stumpf went to Vietnam.For his actions seven months into the first of his three tours, he received the Medal of Honor.

He served in the Army until retiring in 1994 as sergeant major.

Stumpf died April 23 in Tomah, Wis. He was 77 and had pancreatic cancer.

Stumpf once told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that “I couldn't wait to see my first action. When it happened, my whole mouth dried up and my rifle jammed.”

He was 22 and a squad leader when his platoon leader sent him on a searchand-destroy mission. He put himself in the first and most exposed position in the squad's formation.

Three of his six men were hit in the legs. Gravely wounded, they were stranded. When reinforcements arrived, so did even greater enemy fire.

“Stumpy, look out!” someone shouted. “There's a grenade between your legs!”

“Stumpf looked down,” according to Soldier of Fortune. “There was indeed a grenade between his legs. He calmly picked it up, tossed it back at the enemy, then resumed firing his M-16.”

Despite ongoing gunfire, Stumpf one by one rescued his three mates and pulled them to their trench.

“I don't consider myself a hero,” Stumpf said years later. “It was my obligation. I was the only one in the squad not wounded.”

Kenneth Edward Stumpf was born in Neenah, Wis. on Sept. 28, 1944.

Stumpf married Dorothy Guralski. She died in 2014. Survivors include three children, two sisters and six grandchildren.

Kenneth E. Stumpf