A Friend Dies – Another Vietnam War Hero is Laid to Rest

Reserved, introverted, a smile for a friend here or there.

Intellectually astute, few knew him .

Hi Jim, we would say, as he passed by

head down, was he thinking or avoiding eye contact?

 

Over a beer at Blackwelders  in Salisbury he’d talk a bit about his home town,

 A farming village tucked away in Southern PA.

Nothing much happened there , which suited Jim just fine.

Jim wanted to be a numbers cruncher, an accountant.

A quiet contributor in  an honest firm .

The 1^st in his family to graduate from college, he would succeed.

 

Graduation came, followed by a “ Uncle Sam wants you” letter.

Stoic, resigned, no flight to Canada for this young patriot.

Off to Fort Knox, just tell me what to do made him ideal for the ARMY.

A follower rather than a leader, Jim was assigned to a rifle company.

An expert marksman, he became a man, a real man.

Fighting for what was right in South East Asia.

 

The rice fields of Vietnam claimed the future of this brave American.

Jim later said he was not a  hero.  His Company was overrun by the Viet Cong.

Death everywhere. He was flown out by helicopter.

He lost most of his eyesight.  Skin was raw and ravaged. Legs weakened.

 

 I saw Jim in a vocational rehab program several years after the war.

Struggling to walk, straining to see in the sunlight, Jim offered his

hand, we exchanged hugs.  How are you doing I awkwardly asked?

I’m ok – getting along he muttered..

 

A purple heart winner – Jim wanted to remain anonymous.. Didn’t want  to

talk about the lives he saved. 

He returned to the village from whence he was raised.  There were rumors of his heroism.

But Jim remained  silent. Home bound and separated from most of the community he didn’t

want others to see his scarred and maimed body.  A high school athlete reduced to an invalid.

Dependent on medical pain killers, crutches, darkened  glasses, his dream of being

an accountant faded and disappeared as the Grim Reaper stood and smirked in the doorway.

 

His story revealed posthumously.  One of those heroes whose names will not appear on the

Vietnam War Memorial.  One of thousands  who died quietly in the service of our country.

 

A tiny church yard in an out of the way town .

 Military honors.

Jim slowly and humbly laid to rest .  No reporters or TV.  No articles in the Baltimore papers.  Dust to

dust in the simplest of terms.

No listing on the nightly news. 

An intelligent young man, a product of the best this country has to offer.  Laid to rest without notice, or

acclaim.  His parents long since passed, a few neighbors stoically watched Jim enter hallowed  ground.

 

Vietnam?  The scars of this war are open and reeking pus to this day.  When I asked Jim how he was

doing, his dark, vacant, weary eyes said it all – he knew what could have been, how he could have raised

a family and given back to the Lord he revered and honored .  All denied, who would have this crippled

body? Incapable of making a living: denied the right to father children.

 

 Denied the future of making his immigrant parents proud.  They fled Europe and became American

citizens for what – for their eldest son  to be sacrificed on the altar of lies told about the Gulf of Tonkin .

The ultimate sacrifice – may we all be honest about our past and our future.

 

 

The ultimate sacrifice