Strength in Numbers

Growing up in South Jersey during the Reagan years of the 1980s, Joseph F. Walters did not have to look hard to find role models and personal heroes. Sylvester Stallone’s justice-seeking alter ego, John Rambo, along with Chuck Norris as the undaunted and intrepid James Braddock in the Missing in Action films, loomed larger than life to this son of a Vietnam veteran. The excitement and moral righteousness of seeing fearless men settling old scores once and for all in Hollywood’s invented version of Southeast Asia could only set a young boy’s mind and passions ablaze with visions of glory. Closer to home, that same intensity manifested itself every time former Philadelphia Phillies first baseman and one-time anchor of Cincinnati’s legendary Big Red Machine, Pete Rose, strode into the batter’s box. Rose’s willingness to endure pain and sacrifice everything in a relentless assault to steal a base, beat out a throw, or dive headfirst into home and score the winning run was instilled as a defining value to be emulated and embraced. And then, there was the guy dripping in sweat with a vexed determination, hopping up and down a hillside wearing a 25 pound weighted vest in the middle of the summer, training for his next Judo competition in spite of the fact that he only had one leg. Strength in Numbers is the story of that man, the father of Joseph F. Walters and a true American hero, Joe Walters. Strength in Numbers presents a span of 11 years in the life story of Joe Walters, starting with his deployment to Vietnam in 1968 as a twenty-seven-year-old Marine and culminating with his ascension as an accomplished competitor in Judo, claiming first place at the 1979 United States Judo National Masters Championships. While Joseph Walters had known of his father’s military service and personal sacrifice and had witnessed his later career in national and international Judo competitions, the story of Joe’s journey from the combat zones of Vietnam to the medal podium had remained in the domain of his father’s secrets. This is the amazing, inspirational story recounted in the pages of Strength in Numbers, recorded by the pen of the son, but spoken directly as the words of the father. The firsthand account follows Joe Walters, an ex-army paratrooper and recent college graduate, as he arrives in country in June 1968, at the start of his tour of duty in Vietnam as a Second Lieutenant with the Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, Mike Company. With vivid descriptions of the realities and horrors of war, Lieutenant Walters’s story relates his platoon’s engagement in the seven-day battle for Hill 310 and the disastrous mission near Goi Noi Island, just three months into his tour, during which Lieutenant Walters and his men would find themselves decimated, pinned down for hours in an unprotected rice paddy, just thirty yards from the heavily fortified NVA position that had wounded or killed nineteen of the twenty Marines with him that afternoon. Lieutenant Walters emerged from that rice paddy alive, but with a gunshot wound to his left leg that would necessitate amputation of the limb from the knee down. Stateside, this remarkable story continues to unfold as Joe Walters begins to study in Philadelphia with Judo sensei, Takahiko Ishikawa, and ultimately travels to Japan to train at the legendary Kodokan Judo Academy, launching a half-decade of global itinerancy in Europe, Tokyo, and Texas, pursuing his Judo training, embarking on a career as a school teacher, and starting a family. After a rules change bans the use of his prosthetic leg in Judo matches, Walters renews his commitment to training and, in 1979, defeats former Pan American champion, Hayward Nishioka to win first place at the United States Judo National Masters Championships. Strength in Numbers is a vivid portrait of one man, who despite war, horrific injury, and continued adversity, perseveres to become a Judo champion, a husband and father, and above all, his son’s greatest hero.

Joseph F. Walters resides in Upper Township, New Jersey with his wife and young daughter. This book is about his father, Joe Walters.