Edward F. Crawford Sr., 86, decorated Marine veteran

EDWARD F. Crawford Sr. packed enough drama in his life to severely tax any normal man.

He was a highly decorated Marine veteran of three wars, who received five Purple Hearts for wounds. He was an Upper Darby Township Police Officer, state constable serving into his 80s, a boxer with a few professional bouts, and the founder of a boxing gym that saved many kids from the temptations of the streets.

Ed Crawford, who served a total of 40 years in the Marines, including stints in World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam War, and retired with the rank of Chief Warrant Officer 3 Gunner, died Sunday. He was 86 and lived in Drexel Hill.

The Gunner appellation is awarded to a Marine with special weapons expertise and entitles him to wear chief warrant officer insignia on his right collar and a bursting bomb on the left.

At special occasions after the wars, when Ed would show up in his dress blues, with his ribbons and medals and the Gunner insignia, even generals would sidle up and ask him to pose for pictures with them.

Ed did not see combat in World War II. He entered the Marine Corps after the fighting stopped and was assigned to China. He became one of the storied China Marines, whose duty was mostly security.

But in the early '50s, after having married Joan Lee, Ed was in Korea, where he would suffer three wounds by shrapnel and gunshots.

At one juncture in 1953, Ed's unit was defending a hill being attacked by a numerically superior force of North Korean troops. It didn't look like the Marines could hold out, and several of them, including Ed, began to write farewell letters home.

These they entrusted to the commander of the lone tank supporting the infantry. But an armistice ending the fighting was signed in July and the men on the hill were reprieved.

"When the North Koreans came to pick up their casualties, they were surprised to see that the hill was defended by only about a dozen Marines," said Ed's son, Edward F. Jr., a retired Marine gunnery sergeant.

The experience was only one of the close calls Ed endured in his military career.

In Vietnam, he was among the Marines who stormed the hills at Khe Sanh in 1968, a major operation described as among the bloodiest of the war.

A bullet pierced his rifle's stock and entered his leg, and shrapnel got him again. While climbing one hill to relieve another company, he was surprised to see a neighbor he knew from the Jersey Shore tramping down.

"Are you going up that hill?" the neighbor asked. "Good luck."

While recovering from his wounds on a hospital ship, a live hand grenade was discovered on a soldier's body.

"Does anybody know about these things?" someone asked.

Of course, Ed volunteered. He donned a flak jacket, retrieved the grenade and tossed it overboard.

In addition to the five Purple Hearts, Ed also won the Navy Commendation Medal with Combat V for Valor, Navy Commendation Medal with Combat V for Valor and the Bronze Star with Combat V for Valor.

But when anyone suggested that he was a hero, Ed scoffed. "The heroes are the ones who didn't come back," he would say.

Ed joined the Upper Darby Police Department in 1957, serving as a patrolman, motorcycle cop and narcotics officer.

In the late '60s, Ed founded the Upper Darby Recreation Gym, taking over an abandoned space above a firehouse on West Chester Pike. It was a large, empty room, which Ed and others ultimately furnished with a boxing ring, heavy and speed bags, and other equipment.

The gym brought in kids from the area, some of whom had been in trouble or were heading in that direction. Among them was Joey O'Donnell, a veteran of juvenile-detention centers, who, after training at the gym, went on to become an Olympic finalist in 1972.

"Knowing Eddie, he gave us a place to go, to do something constructive with our lives," O'Donnell told an Inquirer reporter in 2007. "He gave us a lot of advice. He gave us a lot of understanding."

The gym closed last year.

Ed was born in Clifton Heights to John Berte Crawford and the former Esther Black.

He was an amateur boxer, who briefly turned professional and had a few bouts. He also boxed in the Marine Corps and coached boxing.

Ed served as a Pennsylvania constable until 2010.

His wife died on Dec. 27, 1997. Besides his son, he is survived by another son, Marine Master Gunnery Sgt. David L. Crawford; a daughter, Kathleen M. Carroll-Harrer; a sister, Joan Colsher; six grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.

Services: Funeral Mass 11 a.m. today at St. Bernadette Church, 1035 Turner Ave., Drexel Hill. Friends may call at 8:30 a.m. Burial with full military honors will be in Ss. Peter & Paul Cemetery, Marple.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Edward F. Crawford Sr. Memorial Award Fund, P.O. Box 114, Drexel Hill PA. The fund will honor an outstanding Marine non-commissioned officer annually.