The Shadow
(Editor’s note: With Pearl Harbor Day just around the corner, the feature story is the first of a series about U.S. veterans from the Alleghany Highlands).
After graduating from Alleghany County High School in 1967, Grover Nicely went to work for the C&O Railroad as a carman-apprentice till he was drafted by the U.S. Army.
He remembered, “Junior Putnam had a job all lined up for me after I graduated from Alleghany.”
Nicely had worked at Kroger in Clifton Forge during his high school years, and he and Ruth Deeds Nicely were married in Nov. of 1968.
A relative of Virginia State Senator R. Creigh Deeds of Bath County, Ruth graduated from Millboro High School the same year Grover graduated from ACHS.
She set her goal of becoming a registered nurse and began taking classes at Dabney S. Lancaster Community College (renamed Mountain Gateway Community College on July 1), a goal she eventually achieved by studying at the University of Virginia and in Detroit.
Before the newlyweds could start a family, Grover found himself in Vietnam after completing basic training at Fort Bragg, N.C. and infantry school at Fort Dix, N.J.
Three months after engaging in action in Vietnam, a mortar shell exploded, resulting in Grover suffering a severe head injury that cost him sight in one eye. Doctors inserted a steel plate to repair his head injury that ended his military service.
Today he suffers from diabetes that he believes stems from his exposure to agent-orange, and he has two stints in his heart.
Grover recalled that after he returned home from Vietnam he tried to get a job with the railroad, but because of his injuries, he was not rehired.
The couple began their family when Greg, their son, was born on March 24, 1970. Ironically, John, their second son, was born on the same date of March 24 in 1976.
Their third son, Bobby, was born on Aug. 5, 1977, and Grover and Ruth have nine grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Unable to gain employment with the C&O upon his return from Vietnam, Grover was able to land a job with the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) in Staunton, and he completed 30 years of service before retiring.
He reminisced, “Before I went to Vietnam, I would go to church, but back then, I was just playing church.”
After surviving his life-threatening injuries he suffered in Vietnam, Grover experienced his spiritual conversion, and it was Pastor Doug Moore of the Lone Star Christian Advent Church in Nicelytown, where Grover and Ruth reside, who inspired him to become an ordained minister.
Grover noted, “I felt the call, and I would sometimes fill in for Pastor Moore.”
As for the War in Vietnam, Grover observed, “I didn’t know it at the time, but God had a job waiting for me at the Oak Grove Advent Christian Church on Rt. 629.”
The church is located in Bath County about five miles north of Douthat State Park.
Despite the loss of sight in one eye, Grover continues to be an avid deer hunter. He remarked, “I like to hunt, and today I shot a four-pointer but left my pocket knife in the woods.”
He had driven to ACE Hardware in Clifton Forge to pick out a replacement pocket knife.
Besides being well known in the Alleghany Highlands as a pastor, he became well known after the War in Vietnam by managing Little League Baseball teams and coaching youth league (A & B) teams in football and basketball.
Grover recalled, “I played slow pitch softball for Dairy Queen in Clifton Forge for Marshall Fox of Brentwood back in the 1980s, and our teams won two championships.”
All of Grover and Ruth’s boys were athletes. Greg and Bobby both played football and baseball in high school, and John played football.
Grover said, “A younger coach once asked me to give him advice about coaching youth league teams, and I told him that the main thing is to love the kids.”
Grover has been delivering his sermons from the pulpit for more than a decade now, advising those attending church to love Jesus Christ and to love their neighbors as themselves.
