Missouri veterans discovered more in common than bowling

Marine veterans rediscover friendship at bowling alley 60 years later

BY WQAD DIGITAL TEAM
FEBRUARY 16, 2019

“I didn’t know who he was,” said Dan. Wally added, “We didn’t recognize each other.”

Steeleville, MO (KMOV4)- Two teenagers left their St. Louis homes in the mid-1950’s to join the Marines. They were strangers, turned Marine brothers and now are forever friends.

The two Missouri men never could have imagined how parallel their lives would become.

“We probably were at football games in our high school years not knowing each other,” said Walter ‘Wally’ Lahm.

More than 60 years after they first became friends as young Marines, fate brought them back together at a Steelville, Missouri, bowling alley.

Wally attended McKinley High School and left after his sophomore year to join the United States Marine Corps. Daniell ‘Dan’ Neill went to Cleveland High School in St. Louis and also left after his sophomore year to become a Marine.
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