‘Taking Billy for a ride’ – Boone County fallen soldier honored at upcoming NASCAR race | Nebraska

They served a traditional meal, turkey, dressing, Gertie’s homegrown corn and apple pies. Daughter Lucy Morgan can still picture the day, everyone enjoying the food and each other, but also worrying about the son who wasn’t at the table.

Billy Thiem, 20, was just three months into his tour of Vietnam.

“Of course, we were all thinking of him being over there,” she said. “We talked about it being so dangerous there, and being afraid of all of that.”

Her parents had more guests two days later, when an Army officer and their parish priest stood on their porch.

“Mom said, ‘I opened the door and I knew immediately. I felt the horror of what they were there for.’”

The day before Thanksgiving, the day before the family gathering, Billy had been killed in action.

“At the time, it was a terrible trauma,” Morgan said. “We were such a close-knit family.”

Their father ran a service shop in Loretto, and her younger brother had always been drawn to cars. In high school, Billy would buy an old car, get it running again, and buy another. After he graduated from St. John’s in Petersburg in 1966, he worked for a repair shop in Albion and then at Hulac Chevrolet in Omaha.

“He was a real car freak. He was really into that.”

Which is why she got a case of “the butterflies” earlier this month, when she learned Kyle Busch planned to honor her brother Memorial Day weekend at NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600.

Sgt. Thiem’s name will be lettered onto the top of the windshield of Busch’s No. 18 car, and then taken for 400 trips around the Charlotte Motor Speedway before a crowd of thousands.

“It’s just awesome,” his sister said. “What a tribute.”

A few weeks before he left for Vietnam, Billy Thiem showed up at his sister’s house in O’Neil.

He brought his record player, and his favorite Simon and Garfunkel album.

“And I remember we sat in my house and turned that thing up as loud as it would go,” she said. “He was such a young, vibrant, smart, happy guy.”

When it was time for him to go, he told her to hang onto the album. He’d pick it up when he returned.

He had enlisted the year before to avoid getting drafted. He spent the next 12 months training — basic in Washington, advanced infantry in Louisiana and noncommissioned officer school in California.

He deployed in late September 1968 and was killed three months later, in the Binh Duong Province of South Vietnam. Morgan isn’t entirely clear how her brother died, but her family was told he was leading his men on a mission when he triggered a mine.

The news devastated their parents, and sharpened their mother’s anxiety: Two of his brothers had also enlisted.

“She feared for their lives. Where were they going to go?”

They buried him with full military honors two weeks after they learned of his death. All of the businesses in Petersburg closed during the funeral, and the town flew its flags at half-mast.

And an envelope arrived at Ray and Gertie Thiem’s house, sent from Vietnam before their son was killed but delivered after, Morgan said.

“One of his last letters was him saying, ‘If I don’t make it back home, I’m sure I’ll go to heaven — because this is living hell.’”

Earlier this year, Roger Smith opened a company email at the Mars chocolate factory in Topeka, Kansas.

The company sponsors Kyle Busch’s team, and it was seeking the name of a fallen hero to put on the car for the annual Memorial Day tribute race.

He nominated two. His wife’s grandfather. And, after getting permission from Morgan, a cousin from Nebraska he’d never met — Billy Thiem. He’d heard of him; Smith’s father was in Vietnam at the same time as Thiem.

Smith’s father tried to help when he learned his relative had died. “He wasn’t stationed anywhere near where it happened. But he went over and investigated to see what was going on.”

Smith got a call about two weeks after making his nominations. The selection team wanted more information on Billy Thiem. Then, in the middle of April, they told him they’d picked his cousin’s name to appear on Busch’s Camry.

When Morgan could finally announce the news, her Facebook page exploded with hundreds of likes and comments, some from friends who’d been her brother’s friends, too, or who remembered saying the rosary for him after he died.

“There are so many people that I’ve heard from that I even forgot knew him. I was thankful my cousin remembered him, because now everybody else is remembering him, too.”

But there’s a sharp side to that. Dusting off so many memories after 54 years can resurrect the same fear and grief they felt when they heard the news, she said.

“Even today, it’s not real. It was terrible, terrible.”

Morgan is a race fan. Her grandson and son-in-law run the dirt tracks at Albion, Columbus and Eagle. Kyle Busch has never been their favorite driver, but he’ll have a temporary fan club in Nebraska on Sunday.

“My son-in-law sent me a text that said: ‘I usually don’t root for Kyle Busch, but since he’s taking Billy for a ride, I’ll be rooting for him that day.”