Raymond York Sr., who survived being shot in the chest on a battlefield in Vietnam, was laid to rest Oct. 30 in a quiet cemetery near the woods where he once played as a child.

York enlisted in the U.S. Army while living in Norway and spent one year and 29 days in Vietnam. He was awarded a Purple Heart and four Bronze Stars. His brother, Robert, enlisted around the same time and also received a Purple Heart.

“They had been proud of their service when they enlisted in 1967,” said their sister, Priscilla Bonneau of Norway. “But when they came home, they were spit on, there were things thrown at them. People screamed at them — ‘baby killers,’ they said.”

After the war, York struggled to find peace. In 1979, he set out to “walk through his PTSD,” as his sister put it, by hiking the entire Appalachian Trail.

“He loved nature,” Bonneau said. “He left in April out of Georgia and got to Maine in September. Hiking with ‘no strings attached’ was his favorite thing to do.”

When York broke his elbow along the way, she said, “He got it set at the hospital, got back on the trail, and eventually hacked off the cast and on he went. ‘I’m tough,’ he told me.”

Raymond had a wife and two young sons when he left for the war. But the trauma he brought home created distance. His older son, Raymond Jr., 54, who lives in northern Maine, said he hadn’t had a face-to-face conversation with his father since he was 17.

Even into his later years, the elder York avoided Veterans Administration hospitals. “’Don’t tell anybody. I don’t want anyone to know I was in the service. I don’t want anyone to know I fought in Vietnam,’” Bonneau recalled him saying.

Some years ago, the siblings found each other again, by chance, at a church in Winterhaven, California.

“My husband and I were standing to be introduced, and I turned and saw my brother,” Bonneau said. “I just started shaking all over. My husband thought I was in shock.”

York died June 5, 2022, in Idaho at the age of 74, according to Army veteran John Kimball of Albany Township, who participated in the burial service. He said the family lived in the Mason Township area of Oxford County before moving to Norway.

Bonneau said her final goodbye as her brother was buried with military honors in the Mason Township Cemetery — once known as Meeting Hall Hill — surrounded by pines and family.

Six relatives and seven military officials attended the small ceremony.

With a trembling voice, Raymond Jr. spoke first.

“It is the deepest honor and the heaviest privilege of my life to stand here not only as a minister but as his son to speak these final words,” he said. “Raymond served our nation with distinction in the Vietnam War. His commitment to duty was absolute. His valor was recognized with many honors, including four Bronze Stars — a profoundly rare testament to his courage and action. We honor the young soldier he was. His battle is over, his tour of duty complete.”

Before the service began, York’s sisters, Carol York and Priscilla, reminisced about childhood days spent swinging from a bridge over a river and exploring the woods their brother loved so much.

Kimball, who tends cemeteries in Albany and Mason townships, said York served in Vietnam from August 1967 through August 1969 — “some of the worst years.”

“This service gives a Vietnam vet some much-needed due for what he did,” Kimball said.

When Bonneau spoke, her voice wavered as she recalled the nearly three years they had together at the end of his life — years filled with family visits, stories, and their long-overdue connection.

Born just 20 months apart, she said, “We always looked out for each other.”

At his burial, she kept her word, sharing his last wishes.

“Raymond always wanted everyone to go to church on Sundays,” she said. “He trusted Jesus as his savior as a teenager at the Aroostook Bible Camp on the St. John River in Allagash, Maine.”

Before taps echoed through the wooded cemetery, Bonneau said, “I love you, Raymond, and I miss you.”

The music faded into silence in the quiet woods where a boy once played and, decades later, a soldier finally found peace.