Magnets

26/3/20 Elliecoo 12

“I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as a moral example of the world.” Martin Luther King

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana.

On this day in March 1968, my favorite person was killed in action in Quang Tri Province, Vietnam. He’d turned 22 years old a month earlier and was already a Sargent in the Marine Corp. I wrote this several years ago, but it still rings true:

Vietnam is my magnet word. When I was young, I had a set of hard, dark gray magnets about an inch long. Touch together one end and they snapped to; touch the other and they repelled. When I see Vietnam I still snap to, but my insides are repelled by the memories. Vietnam raised me, TV news and Walter Cronkite bringing daily death counts during dinner.

Lots of things were less safe growing up in the 1960s. Those magnets were probably full of lead and carcinogens, kids were car pooled, unbelted, in the cargo hold of station wagons (“we can fit one more”), the Creeple People machine and Vacuform were industrial tools, and bicycles were ridden daily without helmets. Vietnam was less safe for boys who flipped from banana bikes to rifles at age 18.

I wanted to marry Bobby when I grew up, he of the curling dark hair and life force eyes. I loved him with all the might of an unhappy girl child who found warmth and soul safety in her cousin’s presence, living for the visits, “will Bobby be there?” Bobby was kind to me, didn’t care that my family said I was a precocious brat. As an eighteen-year-old with a brand-new used car, back-country roads, and the unlimited possibilities of Friday night awaiting him, he made time to hold my hand, visit his big outside dog, share some of his heat. It was enough just to be in the same room.

I’d turned nine when Bobby died, a marine killed in Vietnam; he was 22. The next time we went to visit, I broke my already cracked mother when I asked, “will Bobby be there?” I’d forgotten he died – just for a second. I got in big trouble for that one, hurting my mother like that.

My own son turned 27 last month and the realization that Bobby never did so hit hard. Old tears, old pain, old woman now. I’m a peripheral person to Vietnam. I didn’t serve, I didn’t protest, I didn’t debate – I was just a kid. But Vietnam raised me just the same. Swanson TV dinners in hot foil packaging, live TV footage of the war, KIA, MIA, do you want dessert?

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About Elliecoo 559 Articles
Four dogs, one partner. The dogs win.

12 Comments

  2. My uncle Al was also a Marine in Viet Nam. He stepped on a land mine and lost half a leg walking point on patrol one day in 1968. My young cousins and I used to think that Paul McCartney song was about our uncle. Uncle Al was a superhero when I was growing up. Here was a guy who fought a land mine and won. He drove Corvettes and psychedelic vans with the Zig Zag man painted on the side. At one point he almost lost his other leg in a water skiing accident. He was also an alcoholic. In 2011, having been been convicted of his 4th or 5th OUI, and knowing he was facing prison time if he got caught again, he tethered himself to his house. His good-time drinking “buddies” all abandoned him. My father was clueless what his brother meant that summer when he said, “I’ll never see another snowflake.” Uncle Al shot himself on Sept 28, 2011. In a way, I think he was killed in Viet Nam and it took him 40 years to die.

  4. What a beautiful tribute to your cousin, I can almost imagine him – eyes sparkling, driving that car on a summer night, windows down, breeze blowing through his curly hair.
    Vietnam defined our generation, even those of us too young to fully grasp what was happening. I also lost a cousin in Vietnam, but I didn’t know him well. He was wild, in trouble a lot. My mother disapproved of him and his mother, my father’s sister. I don’t remember the date of his death or his age. But I will never forget seeing my father cry, my tall, strong father. He was a hard drinking, bar room brawling mill worker, a tough guy. The sight of him weeping and broken terrified me. Years later he went to DC to see the memorial, and did a pencil rubbing of his name. He kept it with a picture of the young man who was named after him. We found it with his own Purple Heart and medals after he died.

    • “Vietnam defined our generation, even those of us too young to fully grasp what was happening.”
      This!^^^

      Even those of us who were born after Saigon fell had lives affected by the war & it’s consequences.

      I don’t know a single person in my grade growing up, who didn’t have a father or uncle who fought.

      We were ALL born after the war (my oldest classmate was born in late August of ’75), but because of the ways the war impacted our families (dads who’d fought, uncles–sometimes aunts who’d been there, or for some, who’d died over there), it was *always* around during our early childhoods. Even though, at that point, the war had been declared “over” for a few years.

      • My dad was a Marine squadron leader in Vietnam & luckily made it back both physically and mentally though many in his squadron did not. My oldest memory is him putting me in bed with my mother as he left us for a full year. I had two of those years early in my life and the first time he returned I didn’t recognize him, I thought my older brother was my father. I think my dad spent the rest of my childhood trying to make up for those 2 lost years and it helped make me the spoiled kid I enjoyed being!

  5. Sorry for the loss of your cousin, Ellie💖💗💓

    He sounds like the best sort.

    That war was shit,for so many reasons–especially for the people who were lost, like your cousin & Lemmy’s uncle.

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