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Gary Clancy: A True Giant in Many Ways

By Patrick DurkinSeptember 19, 20162 Comments

I cringe and avoid email messages when seeing “Sad News” or someone’s name in the subject line, especially when it’s someone special.

So, when I opened my email July 28 and saw Gary Clancy had sent me such a note, I cursed quietly and ignored it awhile. The message probably wasn’t from Clancy. I assumed a loved one was using his email account to share bad news I’d been expecting.

Gary Clancy

Patrick Durkin and Gary Clancy at the 2009 Deer & Turkey Expo in Madison, Wisconsin.

I felt no rush to confirm Clancy’s death because, in terms of special, few match this longtime outdoor writer, hunter, angler, golfer and family man from Stewartville, Minnesota. Clancy, 68, was also a Vietnam veteran, an Army infantryman who enlisted well before Uncle Sam could draft him.

Just so we’re clear, “Clancy” is how he signed his notes, letters and emails; and identified himself on phone messages. The only thing that identified him more certainly was his laugh, and maybe his 6-foot, 4-inch frame.

Gary Clancy

Gary Clancy and his wife, Nancy, often worked deer shows together.

When we last met in April 2014, Clancy was about nine years into a 12-year fight with non-Hodgkin lymphoma – most likely caused by agent orange. He grinned widely while we shook hands and said, “I know what you’re thinking: He looks a lot better than I expected.”

That’s exactly what I was thinking. This was cancer, after all. But there was Clancy, still standing tall, still smiling through pain and fatigue, still choosing to enjoy life, and still finding the time and strength to write articles and teach seminars. I’m sure he was still meeting his deadlines, too. It had been a decade since I had edited any of his books or articles, but I knew Clancy couldn’t forsake his duties.

He was a good writer, too. He never ran dry of queries for magazine editors, probably because no one had more depth and breadth in the outdoors. Many serious deer hunters are also deadly walleye fishermen, but those were just one of many such skills for Clancy. He was also an expert trapper, bowhunter, marksman, predator hunter, shotgun shooter, muzzleloading hunter, bird hunter and bird-dog owner.

Gary Clancy

Outdoor writers Gary Clancy, Ron Spomer and Dave Henderson share a laugh while working at the 2014 Deer & Turkey Expo in Madison, Wisconsin.

Clancy could write and talk expertly on the subtleties and intricacies of all such crafts. Heck, he even took pride in his golf game, but had enough sense not to write about it.

And no matter what the subject, Clancy was a gifted storyteller. He wrote perhaps his most haunting piece about five years ago for American Hunter magazine, a story that originated as a thank-you note written one night in Vietnam on the back of a C-rations package. Clancy thanked his father for teaching him to shoot right- and left-handed, a skill that ensured he could always shoot no matter which way ducks flew into his decoys.

He wrote the thank-you after a harrowing firefight earlier that day. Clancy was his squad’s point man while on patrol, and saw a gun barrel sticking out in ambush yards away, the hidden enemy waiting for the Americans to walk fully into the trap.

Clancy knew the jungle was about to explode with gunfire from many more unseen barrels. He also knew he and his squad would be dead if he tried shifting his M-16 from his left side to his right shoulder while twisting to shoot. A split-second later he shouldered his rifle left-handed and opened fire.

Clancy sometimes likened a firefight’s hellish noise to a thousand chainsaws roaring full throttle inside a phone booth. I don’t recall the casualty count of that particular fight, but Clancy didn’t paint himself as a hero. He was “just a Grunt” who’d been taught well by his dad back in Minnesota.

Clancy told another war story more often. He and his buddies had arrived late for Bob Hope’s USO show after drawing the final four seats on an outbound helicopter. They went straight from a patrol to the show, still dirty and stinky, with no time to shower or change fatigues. They landed and found the place jammed, but Clancy spotted empty rows up front and led the way. As the four GIs started to sit, MPs rushed over, shouting that the benches were reserved for “the brass.”

Bob Hope happened to walk on stage just then for some final checks, and saw what was happening. Clancy said Hope yelled at the MPs, “You let those boys sit there!” And they did.

Late in the show, actress Connie Stevens was preparing to sing “Won’t You Marry Me, Bill,” a song The Fifth Dimension made famous. Stevens asked if any Bills in the crowd wanted to sing with her. Clancy’s hand shot up and she called him to the stage with several other GIs.

When they finished singing, Stevens asked each “Bill” their full name and hometown. When she put the microphone in front of Clancy, he loudly and proudly said, “Gary Clancy, Albert Lea, Minnesota!” Stevens laughed harder than anyone. When she signed a photo for him, she inscribed it “To the Impostor.”

clancy buck

Outdoor writer, Gary Clancy, arrowed this Minnesota buck in November 2014.

Perhaps my favorite Clancy story, however, occurred in the late 1990s when he was bowhunting deer in western Wisconsin. He sat dawn till dusk on a hillside tree stand, enduring an all-day torment of wind and sleet without seeing one deer. While returning that night to his host’s home, he got a flat tire on his compact pickup. After jacking up the truck and removing the flat, Clancy couldn’t dislodge the spare tire from beneath the cold, muddy undercarriage.

Cell phones weren’t yet common, and even now signals are weak in that area, so Clancy carried his flat tire toward a barn’s distant lights, knowing dairy farmers can sometimes fix flats.

When he finally reached “home” two hours later and shared his adventure with laughter and self-deprecation, another guest couldn’t understand his cheerful spirit. “I’d have blown my stack,” the man said. Clancy just smiled and shrugged.

I don’t recall his exact reply, but it went something like this: “A flat tire is no big deal. Vietnam? That was a big deal. I always said if I survived Vietnam, I’d never again sweat the small stuff. And I don’t.”

Judging by the grace, humor and courage Clancy showed these past dozen years, he never again sweated the awful stuff, either.

Thanks for everything, Clancy. See you in a few.

Patrick Durkin
President at Wisconsin Outdoor Communicators Association
Patrick Durkin is a lifelong bowhunter and full-time freelance outdoor writer/editor who lives in Waupaca, Wisconsin. He has covered hunting, fishing and outdoor issues since 1983. His work appears regularly in national hunting publications, and his weekly outdoors column has appeared regularly in over 20 Wisconsin newspapers since 1984.
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