Kenneth Radonski: A Photo Reunites Old Friends

David Radonski had plenty of memories with Butchie, Kenneth Radonski’s childhood nickname. The brothers shared a room together growing up, worked together at their father’s gas station on 16th and Oklahoma in Milwaukee and received their Confirmation together. David describes his memories with Kenneth as “clean fun.”

“We would go crabbing and biking together,” David said. “We never caused any trouble, it was always clean fun.”

David was one of three children. Kenneth Radonski was the youngest, David was the middle child and Donna Radonski was their older sister. They lost Kenneth in Vietnam, while he was in the Marines.

Kenneth wrote letters back home when he was away, but David remembered a specific one. During that time, David had a wedding planned to his now ex-wife. The letter Kenneth wrote was to their parents. He told them that if anything were to happen to him, that he wanted them to make sure it would not affect David’s wedding. David’s wedding was set for March 2, 1968. Kenneth passed away on Feb. 17, 1968 and on March 1, 1968, Kenneth’s body arrived home in Wisconsin. He was 21-years old.

“We still had the Mass and breakfast,” David said in regards to his wedding. “We cancelled the evening reception. It was hard.”

A list of names

Andrew Johnson is the owner of the weekly newspaper called the Dodge County Pionier. He lost his son in Afghanistan. He knew that his son would have wanted him to continue on and make a difference in the world.

Johnson decided to take on a project that would help the new education center being built in Washington D.C near the Vietnam Memorial. The goal is to have a photograph of every service man and woman who died in Vietnam. The photo would be displayed next to their name and birthday. The search of these photographs is called the Wall of Faces.

In February, Kenneth Radonski’s name was on a list of 64 supposedly unfindable photos. Most were also from Milwaukee.  A class of UW-Milwaukee journalism students set out to find them.

The path to finding Kenneth Radonski’s photograph was quite a journey. A posting from Donald Guthro on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial website led to Gregg Kellner. Guthro saw Radonski the night he died and remembers him as a good man who was quiet. This posting had Guthro’s email attached to it. Guthro forwarded the student journalist’s email seeking Radonski’s photo to Kellner, who still had contact with Radonski’s brother, David Radonski.

Kellner responded quickly, explaining who he was and that he had contact information for David. Within a few hours, David had called with an invite to come to his house for the photographs and to learn more about Kenneth.

Kellner remembered Kenneth as a loose cannon and described his love for dogs.

“He loved his black Labrador, Queenie,” Kellner said. “She would always be with him or he would always be talking about her.”

Kellner was closer with David growing up, which explains why after all these years, he was excited to make the phone call and talk with him again. It had been 45 years since they last talked to one another, and they were reunited thanks to the search of Kenneth’s photograph.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Gregg’s name on the caller ID,” David said.

David lives in Milwaukee and focuses most of his time on family. He has three sons, three daughter-in-laws, seven grandchildren and 1 great grandson. He looks forward to things such as picking up his grandson from his sporting events to his weekly Buffalo Wing Wings date with his granddaughter. Things Kenneth didn’t get to do.

The years may have passed, but he still remembers all the times he had with Kenneth. He enjoyed working with him at his Dad’s gas station. He joked that Kenneth would do all the mechanic work and he stuck to the easy tasks such as pumping gas and washing windows.

David said the family was bothered that he died alone with no family members by his side.

“I miss him deeply,” David said. “We did a lot together, and it was very hard to say goodbye.”

David and Kellner plan to meet up soon for lunch and catch up on what they’ve missed out on in each other’s lives.