Walt Sopkowicz, Vietnam Navy Veteran and Skilled Tradesman, Dies at 79

Walt Sopkowicz died March 27 at the Idaho State Veterans Home in Pocatello, where a disease traced to his Vietnam-era Navy service ultimately claimed him at 79. The man his family and friends knew as "Sop" had spent decades welding and operating heavy equipment in the coal mines of Colorado, Montana and Wyoming, but his final years found him in the care of a government he had served on the rivers of Vietnam more than a half-century earlier.

Born November 29, 1946, in Laona, Wisconsin, to Bruce Frank Sopkowicz and Janice Elaine Heisel, Walt grew up in Armstrong Creek and Goodman, playing baseball and football and working summers on his uncle's farm. Those years in northern Wisconsin shaped the physical discipline and pride in honest work that would define his adult life.

His Navy service placed him on river patrol boats in the Republic of Vietnam, among the most exposed and dangerous assignments of the war. He came home with views about how America treated its veterans that hardened rather than faded. The words he left his family with carry the full weight of that service and his disillusionment: "This is not the country that I knew, loved, and lived in, and I died for." His son Walter also served in the military, and his family noted that Sop was "proud to see his son also serve his country."

After leaving the Navy, Sopkowicz moved to Colorado and trained as a welder and heavy-equipment mechanic. Over the following decades he hired on at coal mines across three states, work he took on to provide for his children through difficult economic stretches.

He is survived by his brother, Bruce (Kathy) Sopkowicz of Hatley, Wisconsin; his son Walter (Jalin) of Idaho Falls, Idaho, and grandchildren Gabriel, Abigail, Tirzah and Tamara; and his daughter Casey (Keith) Cameron of Christchurch, New Zealand, and grandchildren Coco and Tane.

HOW TO HONOR HIM

No public funeral services were planned. Per Sopkowicz's wishes, his military service will be recognized with a government-provided grave marker. Condolences may be sent through Wood Funeral Home.