Veteran Highlight" Bill O'Neill

Bill O'Neill graduated from Ronan High School and was drafted into the Army in September of 1953, when he was 18 years old.

O'Neill was inducted in Butte and attended basic training in Fort Ord in California. From there, he headed to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri for combat engineer training.

After training, O'Neill's company was shipped to Korea, where they were attached to the Air Force and served as maintenance and guard to an F-86 Air Force Base.

He earned his military occupational specialty in demolitions.

"I was trained as a demolition expert," said O'Neill. His early training focused specifically on mines and booby traps, which were designed to maim instead of kill so others members of a patrol would have to support the injured soldier.

O'Neill attended several additional schools for demolitions, including a seven-week training in southern Japan and another six-week training in Guam.

"The Guam one was strictly constructive," said O'Neill. "You can be constructive or destructive with powder."

He used the demolitions expertise he gained from these trainings to complete demolition of bridges that had already been partially bombed as well as to help finish construction of a B-36 runway in Guam.

By 1955, O'Neill had finished his tour and returned to Montana. During his military induction, O'Neill met Steven Ployhar because they were arranged alphabetically in the line. They continued to serve together through basic training and combat engineer training.

"Long story short," said O'Neill, "we were never apart. We stayed in the same eight-man tent in Korea."

When the two returned to Montana, O'Neill was introduced to Ployhar's sisters, one of whom he eventually married.

"We raised six boys and two girls," said O'Neill.

O'Neill spent 23 years driving a logging truck after his return from the Army.

"At that time, there were five sawmills running full-bore," O'Neill said about Lincoln, adding that Highway 200 was still state Highway 20 at the time, and a dirt road.

O'Neill also put his demolitions expertise to use back in Montana, working with farmers and government organizations to complete demolitions projects.

"I came home with all my extremities. With the type of work I was doing, I must of known something," O'Neill said. "I practiced that knowledge for 50 years as a civilian, a lot of it between here and Thompson Falls, Arlee, Ronan, St. Ignatius, the Bitterroot."

He said he used the knowledge gained in the military and tuned it down for domestic work on trail-building, cleaning rocks out of farm fields and other projects.