Tom Tangney (left) poses with his older brother Clarence, who later died during the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge in Korea in 1951. 

R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Like the Aretha Franklin song, all Tom Tangney wanted was a little respect. While Aretha sang of a personal relationship, Tangney wanted respect for all those who serve our country.

Tangney, who died Wednesday, June 23, at age 89, often spoke at local events about remembering the sacrifices of veterans. “By honoring the nation’s veterans,” he liked to say, “we preserve their memory, their service and sacrifice.”

Tangney, of Pendleton, knew something about sacrifice.

At age 19, he joined the Marines and headed to Korea. He was a high school football star, and admitted that a recruiter swayed him by telling the teen he had a good chance of playing on the Marine football team. He had been awarded a full-ride scholarship to play at Pacific University but realized he would soon be drafted, so he closed the deal with the Marines rather than having the branch chosen for him. The young man soon found himself in the grittiest of environments during the three-year conflict in Korea. In the frigid cold, the men dealt with frostbite, icy terrain, jammed weapons and frozen rations. They wore multiple pairs of pants to cut the cold and used snow to make coffee. Tangney was pulled out of combat two weeks early after his brother, Clarence, died at the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge in 1951. He officially confirmed the identity of his brother, whose Army dog tags had been removed behind enemy lines. The sight of Clarence’s face, half gone, shook Tom.

Clarence had supported his younger brother by doing Tom’s chores on the family’s Prineville farm so that Tom could play football and run track. Tom never quite got over losing him, say family members.

Tangney sometimes spoke about the difficulty of returning home from war, about feeling jittery and drinking too much. Post-traumatic stress disorder wasn’t yet a term, he said. Rather, returning war veterans struggled with “shell shock” or “combat fatigue.”

“Or you were crazy as hell,” he told a group in 2017. “Society at the time did not understand psychological effects of war trauma.”

After six months, the jitters faded as he pushed his war memories to the far reaches of his mind. He married his high school sweetheart, Maxine, and started work at a sawmill. A job at Mid-State Lumber Company brought the couple to Pendleton in 1955. The couple had three children, one of whom died at age 2. He drove a milk truck for Carnation Dairy for 22 years and eventually he and Maxine operated the Daisy Milk Company in Pendleton for another 22 years.

Those who knew Tangney best say he lived to serve. He served with Veterans of Foreign Wars Let ‘er Buck Post 922, the Elks, the Main Street Cowboys and in many other ways. He was honored as Pendleton’s 2006 Man of the Year. Tangney was the milkman who shared a friendly greeting and a joke at every doorstep, said grandson T.J. Tangney. He was also the guy who did something just because it needed to be done.

“He had this way of always standing up for what was right,” T.J. said. “He lived his values.”

“He was the embodiment of that quote: ‘Be the change you want to see in the world,’” said granddaughter Tammy Fisher.

After retiring, he worked for the city of Pendleton part time doing maintenance and janitorial work just to stay useful.

“He retired again at 85,” Maxine said.

Umatilla County Commissioner George Murdock got to know Tangney while planning celebrations for WWII and Korea veterans. Murdock said he felt heartbroken upon learning of Tangney’s death.

“I believe Tom did much of what he did to honor his brother’s memory and that of his comrades,” Murdock said. “He lived with honor and he will be remembered with honor.”

For Tangney, the beginning of the end came about a month ago. He had been about ready to leave for a Buddy Poppy event. His shoes were shined. His VFW hat sat snuggly on his head. Then he passed out and fell in his living room and the ambulance was called. The incident started a monthlong health decline. Before then, T.J. marveled, his grandfather seemed strong, mowing his lawn several times a week. Before an air ambulance flew him to Walla Walla, Tom fretted about Maxine.

“In the helicopter,” Fisher said, “he told them, ‘My wife, she can’t drive. I have to take her to get her hair done.’”

Maxine said her husband, the good-looking boy who attracted her at Crook County High School almost 70 years ago, was a tough Marine with a tender side. He was an excellent husband, father and grandfather and lived an idyllic purpose-driven life.

Once in a while, disrespect toward veterans or the flag brought Tangney up short, however. In 2008, vandals shattered a marker at the Bishop Memorial Garden in Pendleton bearing the names of Umatilla casualties in World War II. Pieces of granite littered the sidewalk.

Tangney, commander of VFW Post No. 922 at the time, struggled to contain his emotions.

“I have a hard time understanding why someone would do a thing like this,” he said. “This is honoring the memory of those killed in World War II.”

He was heartened, though, when community members donated money to help the VFW rebuild the monument.

Tangney considered the flag one of the strongest symbols of respect for veterans and the country they defended. Fisher said her grandfather was an expert in the flag code, which specifies the dos and don’ts of flag flying. It should always be illuminated, for example, and it should never become tattered. If he noticed an improperly flown flag, she said, he wasn’t afraid to march up to the person’s door and share his knowledge.

The family invites all who loved Tangney to gather Wednesday, June 30, at 1 p.m. at the Pendleton Convention Center to celebrate his life. At the bottom of a flyer announcing the service is written, “In lieu of flowers please consider an act of service to your community or a donation to the Pendleton Military Tribute.”