Raymond “Ray” Duttweiler

Raymond Duttweiler was born in Munich, Germany, in 1955, the son and only child of Col. Oscar E. Duttweiler, Jr., a highly-decorated World War II veteran and career Army officer, and Valeria Fulvio Duttweiler, a native of Gorizia, Italy. He attended American military schools around the world and also St. Michael's Catholic Elementary School in Leesville, Louisiana. He attended Ankara American High School in Ankara, Turkey, in the 1970s. A classmate and longtime family friend, Valeria Palmer, recalled: "Raymond was attending American University in Washington during the mid/late 1970s and had a terrible automobile accident out on the Beltway. He lost enough blood to cause him to suffer a coronary and go without oxygen to the brain for some minutes too long. When he emerged from the coma, in addition to the physical scars, he had also suffered irreparable brain injury. His parents, Valeria and Oscar (Ozzie) Duttweiler did everything they could, and indeed, after lengthy rehabilitation and treatment, Raymond was able to speak and walk and he still could speak multiple languages, but he would never be able to take care of himself again. For another decade, Ozzie and Valeria took devoted care of Raymond. Then Valeria died at their home on Kos in the Greek islands. Raymond's care fell squarely on Ozzie, who was then 71 and had been terribly wounded during his WWII service with the 10th Mountain Division in the Apennines. And Ozzie carried on. I had not seen them in many years at this point, but with them spending half the year in Florida, 300 miles away, we were able to renew our ties. While Raymond would forget me between calls and visits, he always remembered the times we were together during when we were children and called me "the second Valeria" when we spoke on the telephone. The misery of his impairments was that he had lost so very much, but not enough so that he did not realize what he had lost. Col. Duttweiler was diagnosed with Agent Orange related lymphoma about 6 years ago and had been doing well with treatment until last spring (2004). Last year he came back to the US alone to have more treatments, leaving Raymond in Rome with an old family friend. He was making excellent progress when he got a call from the friend, telling him that Raymond had suddenly been taken ill. Because he could not travel and wanted Raymond to be treated in the US, he had Raymond brought to the US, where he was put in the hospital and died on his father's 84th birthday of lymphoma that had been previously undiagnosed.(Dec. 11, 2004). Ozzie was getting better even with the grief of his son's death, when he suddenly had a severe drug reaction and died 30 days after his son's death."