Naming their loss

The Rumleys have been waiting almost 40 years to give their late brother a proper tribute .

Next week, they can finally do it.

Robert Rumley Jr. of Medford joined the Marines in 1965. He was sent to Vietnam, injured there in 1966, and died from those injuries two years later.

But when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial opened in 1982, Rumley -- who was known as ``Red" or ``Bobby" -- wasn't among the more than 58,000 Americans whose names were etched on the memorial 's walls.

Now, thanks to his siblings, it is.

Last week, his name was etched, along with the names of three other veterans, into the memorial's glossy black granite.

On Monday, as many as 30 people with ties to Medford -- including Rumley's six brothers and sisters -- will be in Washington, D.C., to hear Mark Rumley read his older brother Robert's name to commemorate its addition to the wall.

``He finally gets his just due," said Medford lawyer David Skerry, who was Robert's best friend and will attend the ceremony.

``We've felt his loss for 38 years, and we adjusted to it, but we never really adjusted to the fact that his name wasn't on the wall," said Mark Rumley, who is Medford's city solicitor. ``Now that it is, there's a feeling that justice has been done."

Robert Rumley was the oldest boy in Beatrice and Robert Rumley's sprawling family in north Medford. On basketball courts and baseball diamonds, he was recognized as a fierce competitor, and in backyards and street corners, he was seen as a fierce protector.

To his peers, he was tough, but never a bully.

``He was a little guy, about 5-9 and 165 pounds," Skerry said. ``But he played like a 250-pounder. He was like the pit bull that takes on all the bigger dogs."

To the younger kids in the Englehutt Road neighborhood, he was a role model.

``He was the ideal Marine," said Richard Lee, who grew up next door to the Rumley family.

``Strong and fit, and very quiet and serious, with a nice dry sense of humor," recalled Lee, now 53 and the city's budget director.

That mix of tough and tender made Rumley something of a local legend, at a time when Medford was characterized by close-knit neighborhoods filled with big families.

``There was no air conditioning or video games back then, so after dinner, everyone played outside," said Lee. ``Whenever we played Wiffle ball, Bobby would come pitch to us, and he'd always strike us out."

Rumley went to Medford public schools and graduated from the city's high school in 1960, then earned a bachelor's degree in business from Boston College in 1965.

When he joined the Marine Corps , no one was surprised. Even as a child, Mark Rumley said, Robert typified the Marine motto of ``No better friend, no worse enemy."

``He didn't want anyone to fight his battles," Skerry said. ``He said he couldn't live with himself if he didn't participate."

By early 1966, he was in Vietnam, with the 2d Battalion, 1st Marine Division. According to his family's records, on Sept. 2, 1966, Rumley boarded a Chinook helicopter, bound for Da Nang.

Viet Cong guerillas shot at the helicopter, and it crashed. Rumley landed in a dry rice paddy, with fractures to his pelvis, scapula, and shoulder. He also sustained a serious concussion.

When he was well enough to travel, he was shipped home to Chelsea Naval Hospital. By then, he was partially paralyzed, and he was slipping in and out of a coma .

``I used to visit him at the hospital, on my way home from law school," Skerry recalled. ``I'd bring him a vanilla frappe and we'd talk, but never about what happened over there.

``It was so sad. He had a slow, steady decline."

When he wasn't in the hospital, Rumley stayed at the family home. But the neighborhood hero had to be carried in and out of his parents' home by his father and brothers.

``He was always so capable and strong," recalled Mark Rumley. Before the war, ``he had always lived a life of outwardness. He could fill a room with his presence. [Later], he was broken, depleted, and really just very slowly disappearing."

Rumley died at Faulkner Hospital on May 18, 1968 .

``The whole neighborhood was affected when he died," Lee said. ``Families were so close then."

Friends and relatives say Rumley's parents never recovered.

``Even though they had seven children, they never got over his death," said Janice (Rumley) O'Hearn, the oldest of the Rumley's children. In addition to Mark, there are brothers Michael, Stephen, and Jon, and sister Andrea Nenopoulos.

At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial , often called simply ``The Wall," the names of Americans who died in Vietnam are listed on a series of black granite slabs, in chronological order by the date of the casualty. Visitors scanning the walls for names can see their own image reflected.

But when the memorial opened in 1982, Rumley wasn't among the 58,191 names engraved in the wall.

No one seems to know why. Some say it may be because he didn't die in Vietnam, others say it may be because the Marines promoted Rumley to captain, and then retired him after he was injured.

Either way, Rumley's parents didn't want to push to have their son's name included.

``The parents held it within themselves," Skerry said. ``They were tough people and they were part of the generation that didn't want to burden anyone with their pain."

The Rumley children respected their parents' wishes.

But after Beatrice Rumley died in 1997, and Robert Rumley in 1998, their children began discussing the wall again.

``Our parents didn't have the emotional wherewithal to go forward with this type of petition," Mark Rumley said. ``But after [they] died, it became abundantly clear, to me at least, that the Vietnam wall is a place for the living, so they can be comforted and heal."

In July 2004, Martha Giordano Rumley, who is married to Michael Rumley, applied to run the Marine Corps Marathon, and in the process, she learned who is in charge of reviewing requests to add names to the wall.

The effort began gaining momentum.

The siblings gathered Robert's service records and medical reports. They solicited the support of Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn; Earnest Lindsay, the city's veterans' agent; and US Representative Edward Markey.

In August 2004, they submitted their petition. They were rejected a few times, but kept pushing, and in December 2005, the family received the good news.

When the name was carved into ``The Wall," last week, Mark, Michael, and Jon Rumley were there to observe.

On the plane ride back to Boston that night, the brothers remarked that their longtime burden had been lifted.

``My brother Michael turned to me and said, `This is right. I feel satisfied,' " Mark Rumley recalled. ``Then we both ate our peanuts and fell asleep."

Christine McConville is at cmcconville@globe.com.