1LT Ronald A. Brodhay
1933 – 1958
USN & USMC
KOR
Ronald Allen Brodhay was born February 10, 1933 in Chicago, to Robert O. and Evelyn Preuss Brodhay.
His mother passed away when Brodhay was three years old, and he was raised at the Illinois Masonic Children’s Home in LaGrange. He graduated from Lyons Township High School in 1951, then attended Northern Illinois University for two years prior to joining the U.S. Naval Reserve in September, 1953.
Activated as a USN aviator, Brodhay trained at Pensacola, and served 9 months overseas on the U.S.S. Lake Champlain providing air support during the Korean War. In April, 1955, he was commissioned as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps as a helicopter pilot with the 461st Marine Helicopter Transport Squadron.
Brodhay married Jerry Lou Estes in the base chapel at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C. on July 23, 1955.
Lieutenant Ronald Brodhay was serving at New River Marine Air Station, New Bern, North Carolina, when he was killed in a helicopter crash near Brunswick, Georgia, on May 15, 1958. He rests forever in Barrington’s Evergreen Cemetery.
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Remember. Honor. Teach.
Courtesy of Signal Hill Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.