Veterans Day 2010
Remember the Fallen . . .
The face in the picture drew me in. So much warmth and vitality in his smiling face. What would he have been like today? A doctor? A writer? A businessman? Hard working and good-humored I am sure of that much. I think he would have been a great family man and, if a father, full of love and warmth for his children. These were dreams unrealized because of a life far too short.
As my eyes widened to that inward reflection, I wondered why things had turned out the way they did. It could just as easily been me long since dead. This is the burden of one who remains. Survivor guilt.
I can hear his voice so clearly and after so many years as we waded in the surf of the South China Sea.
"Are you afraid of dying D?"
"I never really thought about it Jim. No, I guess not."
"I am."
The humid air and blazing sun baked us. Jim's comments dampened the conversation and made me uncomfortable. "Why was it so heavy on his mind?" I wondered. There was nothing more to say about it then.
That exchange happened in the summer of 1971 while we were still rookie pilots in the 176th Assault Helicopter Company. Time off was good, but it gave you time to think about things like that and that wasn't so good. Our company area sat on the southern perimeter of Chu Lai and right next to the ocean. The beach was outside of the barbed wire and watchtowers, but on days off, we would use the area to swim, surf and get sun burned. Oh yeah, and drink beer.
That beach holds several indelible spots in my memory. Like the morning I flew over the shoreline on my way out for a mission. Glancing down I noticed something odd out of the corner of my eye. Not sure what it was, but curious enough to quickly swing the helicopter around for another look, I found a sickening sight. It was the shape of a man with legs half bent and arms stiffly held out to the sides. The curious and sickening aspect was that he was very blue in color.
When we finally made sense out of what we were seeing, it became apparent that he was a drowning victim. Later on after the mission, it was learned that he had been missing from a beach to our north a few days earlier. Apparently caught in the riptide, he became a victim of the sea. This is the last thing you would expect to cause your undoing in the middle of a war, but death there came easily and in a multitude of ways.
Jim died in August on a mission rescuing wounded out of the village of Pleiku. He loved that beach and wanted to get back to the world and be a daddy, but it was not to be.
All Gave Some . . . Some Gave All
Remember the fallen and give thanks for the freedoms we experience each day.
Comments