The Battle of Fort Fisher, N.C.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Civil War Weapons with Dick Stilling-- Part 1

The regular monthly meeting of the McHenry Historical Society (for the city, not the county) on October 20th featured Dick "Red" Stilling, a former resident of McHenry now living in retirement in Florida and whose hair is no longer red, hence his nickname, but gray.

He grew up in McHenry, went to high school there, played football, was in the Marine Corps, taught high school in Lake Zurich, Illinois, and was in the FBI for 23 years.  Quite an interesting life.

The reported title of what he was to talk about was covert operations (which he had plenty of in the FBI), but it centered on a large collection of pistols, rifles and swords he had with him.

In the FBI, he headed up the raid on the FALN group who were making bombs with which to blow up the Marine Corps office in Chicago and Operation Graylord which caught dishonest Cook County judges.  A member of our Palatine (Il) Class of 1969, Terry Hake, was involved in it and I asked if he new Terry and he definitely did.

Right There Would Have Been An Interesting Talk.  --Old Secesh

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