Former Honor Guard member is well aware of his good fortune.

By R. Kurt Osenlund, BucksLocalNews.com


U.S. Army veteran Joe Swerk could have very easily been sent to Vietnam, a place where many of his friends ended up and a place he was all but sure he was headed given the time in which he was drafted. But Swerk, who’s fully aware and appreciative of his good fortune, wasn’t thrown into the fray. Instead, the laid-back Newtown resident was assigned to the Army’s Honor Guard in Washington, D.C., a relatively classy gig that, among other things, came with the responsibility of watching over John F. Kennedy’s grave. Ironically, Swerk’s military service, which often required him to stand at attention for long stretches, was followed by a life that, in more ways than one, has been the antithesis of standing still.

Swerk was born in Darby, Pa. in 1947 to parents Nina and Joseph II, but he grew up in and around the Newtown area. He, his parents, and his older sister, Gay, moved in to a home on East Holland Road when he was three, and the family also lived in Wrightstown and Newtown – just a stone’s throw from where Swerk resides today. He graduated from the old Council Rock High School – which is now Newtown Middle School – in 1966, spent a short time at Cambridge School of Broadcasting in Boston, then returned home to study liberal arts at Bucks County Community College.

“That wasn’t going so well, so I decided to join the Navy,” Swerk says, explaining that he signed up for a “120-day delay plan,” which, as described, involved a four-month waiting period prior to active duty. During that period, Swerk was working full-time at an industrial quarry in Wrightstown. While on the job, he broke his leg, an injury that would make him ineligible for Naval service.

“At the time, I was thinking that I was in pretty good shape,” Swerk says. “I had received a medical discharge and thought the time served with the Navy was done. Then the Army sent me my draft notice.”

Swerk was drafted in October of 1967 and, just after the following Christmas, he shipped out to Fort Bragg, N.C. for basic training. Following the advice of an older vet, Swerk “never volunteered for anything, because, usually (according to the old-timer), what you’d volunteer for wasn’t what you’d get.” (Swerk offers the example of a drill sergeant asking which soldiers have driver’s licenses, and then telling those soldiers who stepped up to “drive brooms” all across the floor.)

Advanced infantry training followed at California’s Fort Ord, where Swerk spent eight weeks.
“That was during the height of the Vietnam War,” Swerk says. “We were all pretty much convinced that we were going to Vietnam.”

Some did. Some went to Germany. Not Swerk. In 1968, he and nine other men from his company were sent to Fort Myer, Va., a base that surrounds the outer edge of Arlington National Cemetery and houses the guards of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. (Swerk says he was initially interested in taking a job as the guards’ driver, but since he’d never volunteered for anything, he lacked the required military license.) He soon learned that he’d been pre-selected for permanent duty with the Honor Guard (of which the guards of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier are a division). Back when he’d first reported for basic training, Swerk’s specifications – height, weight, background, etc. – were found to match the requirements of Honor Guard members, and his future was basically decided for him.

Within the ceremonial unit (which presides over all presidential and official affairs in D.C.), Swerk wound up in the (now disbanded) JFK platoon, whose job it was to guard the fallen president’s grave site. During his time with the Honor Guard (which lasted until September of 1969), Swerk also took part in the funeral services for Robert Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower, and crossed paths with the likes of John Glenn, Andy Williams and Peter Lawford. It was Swerk’s responsibility to ward off mobs and photographers, in addition to being put on alert in response to the Martin Luther King-related riots that were igniting the city at the time.

“The stories he’d tell me were incredible,” says Judy, Swerk’s wife of nearly 41 years who was living with him in D.C. while he served with the Honor Guard. “And one of the things that made (his service) so interesting was how many famous people he came in contact with.”

“It was good duty,” says Swerk, who cites “discipline” and “decorum” as the two most valuable lessons he learned during his military tenure.

Once Swerk was discharged, he and Judy – who first met as children playing in the same Newtown neighborhood (“first friends, then best friends, then married,” she says) – returned to the Bucks County area and lived in Levittown for a time. While waiting to be accepted into a veteran’s program at the Rochester Institute of Technology (R.I.T.), Swerk put in a short stint as a police officer in Newtown Borough. When he was finally accepted to R.I.T., the couple moved to Rochester so he could complete his degree. Through the years they’ve also lived in Flemington, N.J., Maryland and, of course, Newtown.

Swerk has worked for a photography hardware company for whom he traveled across the east coast; opened (and later closed) a line of fast food restaurants with a friend in the ‘80s; sold cars at the Faulkner dealership in Trevose; served as a mortgage broker; and all the while remained consistently active with the Newtown Ambulance Squad, an organization with which he’s been somehow affiliated since the age of 16. Swerk is now the president of that organization, and is also the sergeant-at-arms of Newtown’s American Legion Post 440. He has two children, Jill and Joseph IV, two grandchildren, and two other babies: his fishing pole and his motorcycle.

“I’ve been really lucky,” Swerk says.