Posted by Bill Lee on September 22, 2012:

I met Bruce McKinley (although we all called him Skip) in 1962 when I began dating his sister, Lynn. Skip almost immediately became a great friend and a person I became very close to. Lynn and I married in 1963 and were divorced in 1980. Skip was a great soldier. He did three tours in Vietnam. He was a Ranger. He had a Vietnamese counterpart and the two of them led a company of 62 Vietnamese soldiers behind enemy lines on multiple occasion on search and destroy missions. He was fearless. I admired him greatly as a soldier and felt a lot of comfort that men like Skip were protecting our nation. I remember one occasion when Skip and I spent all Saturday night delivering newspapers when I had a job in the circulation department of the Atlanta Newspapers. We always enjoyed being together. On another occasion, Skip brought home his 357 magnum that we shot near his parent's home in Mountain Park, GA. He and I enjoyed water skiing behind his dad's boat in the lake at Mountain Park. His parents were Bruce Alden McKinley, Sr. (we call called him Bud) and Betty McKinley. Skip is survived by his sister, Lynn Pittinos, who lives with her husband, David, in Stuart, Fla. and Wendy Alley, who lives in Gainesvilie, GA.

admin