This morning I received two letters. The first is from a young man I’ve known for many years. He and I exchange letters every few weeks. Today’s letter contained a thick round object. It’s a 1 1/2 inch brass graduate coin for successful completion of a New Dimensions Alcohol & Drug Treatment Program. A year …
Trump Rally and 1968 Chicago Protests
These recent protests against the Trump rally and the media’s obsession comparing it to the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests have triggered memories of my 1968 confrontation with the anti-war protestors. While serving with the Brown Water Navy in Vietnam I was wounded in an ambush and medevac’d home. On August 29, 1968, our C-141 …
WWII Veterans and PTSD
I recently read Thomas Childers Soldier From The War Returning (2009) in which he explores the lives of three Second World War veterans and their families. The book documents a part of our collective past—an inconvenient truth—that has been airbrushed from our national memory. Yet millions of Baby Boomers grew up in the shadow of …
70 Years ago, A Few Months After Victory over Japan
My grandmother’s diary entry: 11-18-1945: Walked through Central Park—a telegram from John Curry saying he had arrived in San Francisco from Tokyo and was leaving for New York on Friday. This picture, taken two years before I was born, jumped out at me perhaps because of the date. My mother Barbara, oldest brother Chris, about …
Veteran’s Day: Honoring a Vietnam War Hero 47 Years Later
Sergeant First Class Patrick Thomas Jr Two years ago I reconnected with a group of men I served with in Vietnam. I mentioned a soldier I’ve thought about each day since August 18, 1968, when he performed an act of heroism during an ambush and was severely wounded. At that 2013 reunion I learned his …
Remembering My Son, Jeff— Sept 25, 1969-July 9, 2015
Jeff died today. The emergency room doctor suspects a brain hemorrhage. Jeff was forty five years old. It’s strange writing those words. In a perfect world parents are supposed to precede their children in death. Jeff led a troubled life. He had his first seizure when he was three months old. From infancy onward he …
Ewa (Eva) Barbacka, my Mother’s Lost Friend from WWII
In September 1939 my mother wrote, Eva Barbacka was a typical Slavic type—a very pale complexion, a round sweet face, large grayish blue eyes and a head of reddish brown waving hair. To tell the truth I had always been a little afraid of her. At that time I did not know that the Slavic …
Memorial Day at a Little Country Cemetery
I stood in the rain this morning and listened to the minister outshout Herefords and Angus cows across the fence. Apparently some calves had wandered off, the moms lowing and the calves replying. It’s natural on Memorial Day to remember back, and as the dripping flag fluttered I recalled the first military cemetery I visited …
Remembering My Brother, Randy
It’s sad how we so often let everyday events obscure our past. I received an email message from one of my brother’s crewmates that April 26 was the 37th anniversary of Randolph Leonard Affield’s death in a plane crash, bodies lost at sea. I knew that but had forgotten. In our family of nine children …
Sergeant First Class Patrick Thomas Jr Born 1931 Died 1986
I believe most of us carry ghosts we hold close. I received the phone call about Sgt Thomas while shopping for my wife’s valentine gift. It was déjà vu—the same sense of disconnect I felt when I learned my brother had been killed. Sergeant Thomas has been in my thoughts each day for more than …