Actor R. Lee Ermey at rest at Arlington National

Marine Gunnery Sgt. R. Lee Ermey

in dress blues (Courtesy Jack Ermey)

By Ted Escobar

PUNKIN CENTER — Actor R. Lee Ermey, who grew up here, is at rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. He died on April 15, 2018, at age 74.

Ermey’s ashes were interred on Jan. 18. 2019. There is an empty plot at his side, reserved for his wife, Nila.

Fans of the rugged former U.S. Marine-turned-actor were saddened when word of R. Lee’s death spread across the Internet last year. And family, of course, was crushed.

For Junior Ford (Houston Lee) of the White Swan-Harrah area, the news was “devastating.” Ermey’s life-long friend received a call from another friend.

“He caught that terrible flu that swept across the country,” Ford said last year. “It led to double pneumonia. He couldn’t breathe Sunday morning (April 15, 2018). He died at about 2 in the morning.”

“I got that same damn flu,” Ford added. “I had it for a couple of months. For a time, I thought I was a goner.”

Ford started to feel better about Ermey’s death when he heard from brother Terry Ermey that his buddy would be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va.

But the process for a burial at Arlington is slow, brother Jack Ermey said. So many burials are requested that it takes months to get an open date. They finally found one on Jan.18. R. Lee’s ashes were flown from the Ermey home in Palmdale, Calif.

The ceremony at Arlington was burial only. When the Ermey clan learned of the time factor, they celebrated a funeral in Palmdale. More than 1,000 family, friends and fans attended.

There were 62 family members, including the two remaining Ermey brothers, Jack and Terry at the burial. There was a press corps of 30-40 and about 100 spectators. Then there was the military presence, including U.S. Marine pallbearers.

“Twenty-five to 30 Marines marched in with the flag and Ronnie’s ashes,” Jack said. “They did the 21-gun salute and played taps. It ended with a bagpiper playing Amazing Grace.”

During the last decade of his life, Jack noted, R. Lee became close friends with Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son. They were teammates on one of the National Rifle Association’s crack competition shooting teams. R. Lee was a board member of the organization.

“Donald called Sunday afternoon to offer any assistance the family may need in getting back to Arlington,” Terry said last year.

On Jan. 17, this year, Donald Jr. tweeted, “For everyone who knew and loved my good friend R. Lee Ermey (THE GUNNY), he will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery at 10:00 a.m., January 18 (tomorrow) Please attend if you’re in the area and render him one final salute.”

Bill Rogin, Ermey’s manager of nearly 30 years, said, “Many people in our society measure success through accomplishments, but to me it’s more important how many people’s lives you’ve touched—and there’s not many people who can say they’ve touched as many lives as Gunnery Sergeant R. Lee Ermey.”

“It’s not the things he did, that you’ve read about, that made him so great, it was the things that you didn’t hear about. Like all the times that he’d meet with dying children with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and then would never let it be publicized — he did that three times in the last year of his life, when he was sick himself. He was a true gentleman.”

R. Lee took a medical retirement as a master sergeant (E-6) and was the only U.S. Marine in history to be promoted to gunnery sergeant (E-7) by the Commandant of the Marines after he was medically retired.

Semper Fi, R. Lee Ermey

(Courtesy Jack Ermey).

“Ronnie was a Marine, always and forever,” Jack said.

R. Lee was the second of the six sons of Jack Sr. and Betty Ermey. All six of them became friends with Ford. They played together, worked together as field hands and got into trouble together.

“We ended up being like brothers,” Ford said.

Jack Ford, Ronnie’s younger brother, referred to Ford as the seventh Ermey brother.

Ford met the six brothers at Ford’s home, a converted warehouse, on Gurley Road, near Punkin Center for the first time in 1956. Although Granger and Zillah both claim Ermey as their own, he actually grew up around Junior’s home and Punkin Center, which is about two miles north of Granger and three miles east of Zillah on the Yakima Valley Highway.

His family lived in a house which was accessed by the Sunnyside Canal bank road. Betty Ermey clerked at Punkin Center store.

“Three of those boys came into my yard on used bikes,” Junior said. “They said they’d just moved here from Kansas. Like all kids who move to a new place, they were looking for other kids to buddy up with.”   

Ford was 11 that year. Ronnie was 12. One Ermey brother, Ed, was older. The younger brothers were Jack, Michael, Steven and Terry.

Ford has a thousand stories from those years. He thought back on them often as Ermey rose in the world of entertainment. Very few would have predicted his success.

“He visited sometimes. Mostly we talked on the phone,” Ford said. “In later years, we didn’t communicate as much. He was very busy.”

The Sunnyside Canal was a playgound for Ford and the Ermeys. They swam in it often.

“We even tried to water ski, towing with an old car,” Ford said. “That didn’t work out well.”

There were other nutty escapades. One was in the same canal during the dry season. They found a willow tree and used it to catapult themselves to a sand bar in the canal. One of the kids got on the tree. The others pulled the tree down, let go and catapulted the kid on the tree.

“Ronnie was a daredevil. He wanted a bigger tree, so we found one. When we let go, it slam-dunked him. We all thought he’d been killed and ran down there.”

Ermey was knocked out, but he escaped without serious injury.

Ford and the Ermey boys had their first smokes together. When they could get their hands on a pack of Lucky Strikes, they went to nearby asparagus fields or orchards to smoke.

“We’d make campfires and smoke in a grape vineyard at night,” Ford said. “We were told you could smoke dry grape vines. We tried it, and it worked. But we woke up the next morning with swollen lips.”

The solemn military ceremony in Virginia gave family members a chance to gather again to toast the most famous Ermey — Ron. Jack, left, and Terry are at the far right, and Ron’s daughter Kimberly is at far left. The others in the picture are daughters and grand-daughters (Courtesy Jack Ermey).

In Sagebrush Canyon, near their homes, the seven brothers found a 50-gallon barrel, with an open end — and a slope. Terry went first and made it to the bottom just fine. When it came to Ermey’s turn, he took the barrel to a longer slope.

“We started him rolling, and down he went,” Ford said. “About halfway down, he started to come out of the barrel and got pretty well beat up.”

“He wouldn’t turn down a dare,” Ford said.

Terry recalled all of them riding a long string of bikes from Granger to Toppenish, Toppenish to Zillah or Zillah to Granger.

“We used to raft the river together on inner tubes,” Terry said. “We’d start at the Toppenish Bridge and go to the Granger Bridge. Somebody would meet us there and pick us up. I learned to swim in that river. They threw me into the water and let me go. It was a real struggle, but I finally swam to the river bank.”

Ford remembers Ermey as the James Dean character in Rebel Without a Cause. He wore sideburns and cowboy boots. He also dressed like Elvis at times.

School was a struggle for Ermey, Ford said. He didn’t like attending and often skipped out. He went to Granger, Zillah and Toppenish.

“All the schools he attended kicked him out,” Ford said.

Ford remembers well two of the times Ermey ran away from home. He just doesn’t remember the order.

On one occasion, Ermey hitch-hiked all the way to his grandma’s house in Kansas. Grandma called his mother to say where he was and that she was sending him back. He had suitcases of blue jeans and “other things” for the boys when he got back, Ford said.

On another occasion, Ford and Terry Walker went with Ermey. They knew their own Fonzie, Fred Ludington, worked on a ferry down on the Columbia River. Ermey checked maps for a route to Roosevelt, and the three started their walking runaway.

“It took us all day and night to get to Bickleton,” Ford said.

At Bickleton, Ford had had enough and walked back to Punkin Center. He had no reason to run away. Ermey and Walker went on, ending up with jobs at a sheep camp on the Horse Heavens. They lived in a sheep camping trailer until family, including Ford, arrived to retrieve him.

“You know why he went into the Marines, don’t you?” Terry commented. “He ran away so many times that mom and dad took him to a judge in Toppenish to ask him to put Ronnie in jail. The judge gave him a choice, jail or the Marines.”

Ermey had seen a Marine in dress blues on a recruiting poster and chose the Marines at the age of 17. Ford learned of all of this after Ermey had signed and left the Yakima Valley. Eventually all six brothers served in the military simultaneously. Three served in Vietnam, where Ford said Ron Ermey was hit by shrapnel twice.

Ford said the Marines turned out to be the best thing for Ermey. The next time he saw Ermey, after induction, Ford said he was changed.

“When he came back (on furlough), we had a party for him at his parents’ home,” Ford said. “He was different. The Marines had made him into a man.”

Ermey served 11 years with the U.S. Marines and had several stints as a basic training drill instructor.

When his brother Steve joined the Marines and went to Camp Pendleton for basic, he ended up with a drill instructor who was not Ermey. But Ermey paid him a visit, and Steve felt at ease.

Then Ermey said: “Steve, you’re my brother. I expect more out of you than anybody else.”

Ford said Steve became a highly-decorated Marine. He was one of five Marines who survived a Chinook helicopter crash into a Vietnam mountain.

After Vietnam and 11 years in the Marines, Ermey took up residence in the Philippines, where he decided to check on an opportunity to be an extra in Apocalypse Now. He didn’t act, but he was signed as a technical advisor for the war film.

According to Ford, Ermey went on to a series of small part in inconsequential movies, including some spaghetti westerns.

“They filmed him in English and then dubbed in the language that was intended,” said Sally Ford, Junior’s wife.

Terry said he and his brothers were proud of Ermey’s budding film career. He told them he was “going to be a star,” and they didn’t doubt him.

“Mom and dad were really proud of him,” Terry said. “When he came to Yakima or Toppenish, they introduced him as their son, the actor.”

With Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket in 1987, Ermey became the star he said he would be. This time, it was Kubric who signed him as a technical advisor to a war film.

“Ronnie was showing the actors how to be a Marine drill instructor when Kubrick suggested he play the role,” Ford said.

Over night, Ermey became the meanest, most foul-mouthed drill instructor in history. And he became a sought-after actor.

Like Ford, Ronnie’s mother went to see Full Metal Jacket, which was the talk of the nation after it hit the theaters.

“She was mad,” Ford said, “She said she was going to talk to Ronnie next time she saw him. ‘We don’t talk that way. We don’t use those words,’ she said.”

Ford’s mother was speaking of Ermey’s role as a Marine drill instructor. Apparently, she didn’t know Ermey learned that role as a real drill instructor at times during his 11 years with the U.S. Marines.

In one of their visits, Ford asked Ermey if he liked making movies. He told Ford there certainly was a lot money.

“He told me making movies was like walking in the park,” Ford said.

Sally Ford added that Ermey was well-liked in the industry for his work ethic. While other actors stumbled and fumbled, he had his lines down pat before shooting.

“He said, ‘They pay me a lot of money; I’m going to give them all I’ve got,’” Sally said.

Ermey also became one of the most recognized ex-Marines, and he was proud of being a Marine until the day he died. Not in step with the rest of Hollywood, Ermey found a better place to live, a California desert much like the Yakima Valley.

“He started with nothing and ended up at Arlington National Cemetery,” Ford said wistfully.