Page 14 - Amarillo Senior Link Magazine Winter 2021 - Online Magazine
P. 14
Bill Duncan A Warrior for the
Lord
By Gene Shelburne
Platoon 50 Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, CA, taken 26
August 1948. Bill Duncan is 7th man from left in second row from top.
had no idea that God was war, not in his wildest dreams
getting him ready to be a could he have imagined that the
soldier. Lord, right then, was teaching
him how to use pig manure and
When “Bulldog” huge flocks of sheep to confuse
Drummond, a bus driver and defeat the supposedly
from Pantex to Amarillo impenetrable security of enemy
Warrior’s Walk will be schools, repeatedly kicked Bill
the title of a soon-to- and his rowdy buddies off the camps.
A be-published book by bus so that Bill had to run six or On the family vacation day when
retired U.S. Marine Col. Billy seven or eight miles to get home Bill’s father tricked him into
R. Duncan. It will be a “must in time to do his chores, Bill jumping off a Lake Meredith
read” for Amarillo residents had no clue that the Lord was cliff and, thereby, taught him
(and for anybody who values the getting him ready to set records how to swim, how could Bill
incredible sacrifices of America’s for multi-mile endurance runs in have realized that God later
military protectors) because it Marine training, both here and would use that aquatic lesson to
tells the story of a hero who came later in cross/training-teaching equip him to train Navy seals for
to Amarillo when he was just a with the Royal Marines in Great amphibious warfare?
boy and who, now in his nineties, Britain.
still calls Amarillo home. In his gripping book, Bill tells
When, in order to date Arlene us that, in every chapter of his
A fearless, faithful Christian, Bill Dew, Bill braved the scary career as a Marine warrior, he
Duncan tells countless stories dander of her protective Pantex could look back and see God
about exciting, sometimes policeman father, Bill could guiding and protecting him.
terrifying times, when God’s not have guessed that God was During his year spent dodging
hand was guiding or protecting guiding him to the dear lady who mortars and sniper fire in the
him. But back in the early days would stay faithfully at his side mud-holes of Korea, or, a decade
of WWII, when his partially for more than seventy years. later, when his brave command
crippled father moved their decisions saved a whole division
family from Floydada to what When, as a teenager, Bill filled of troops in Vietnam, Bill thanked
was then the weapons plant in for ranchers and farmhands the Lord for bringing him and so
community called Pantex, Bill who were fighting in the world many of his men safely home.
14 Amarillo Senior Link
