Lt. Col. James Crawford Hitz, U.S.M.C Ret.

James Crawford Hitz, of Washington County, Virginia, died on December 9, 2021. He was born in Atlanta in 1928, the son of Alex Mayer and Elizabeth Crawford Hitz. He leaves his daughter, Louise Elizabeth Reams and her husband, Edward Reams of New Stanton, PA, relatives in Atlanta, GA, Ruckersville, VA, Newport News, VA, and Temecula, CA, and his longtime companion and esteemed friend, Linda Fritsch.

Enlisting in 1948, he served a total of 22 years in the US Marine Corps. In Korea’s Pusan Perimeter he was an infantry corporal, and in his second assignment to Korea he served as a heavy mortar staff sergeant. After discharge and subsequent college graduation in 1954 he returned to the Corps and became a field artillery officer. In Vietnam, he was the coordinator of artillery, naval gunfire and air support for an infantry regiment in two major operations. He was a graduate of Washington & Lee University and the Marine Corps Command and Staff College. After retiring, he lived in Williamsburg for several years, then Richmond and Ashland. But the appeal of Southwest Virginia proved irresistible, and he and Linda moved to Abingdon in 1994.

Lieutenant Colonel Hitz requests no funeral or memorial service, no flowers, no sympathy cards, no condolence calls, and above all no dratted email or other intrusive communications. He asks merely that tonight you raise your glass in a toast to success at his new duty station – wherever that may be.

The family of James Crawford Hitz is in the care of the Main Street Chapel of Farris Funeral Service, 427 East Main Street, Abingdon, VA.