Local opinion: The old veteran and the widow

“It’s your milestone year,” read the postcard from the old veteran’s college. Actually, five years ago was the real “milestone,” year — 2015 — the 50th anniversary of the old veteran’s graduation. Fifty-five seems less of a milestone, but who’s counting when it’s time to celebrate still being alive.

The old veteran had gone to his 50th college graduation reunion, had been on the planning committee. He was kind of looking forward to seeing some Army ROTC classmates who indicated they’d be there. Rot-C, as it was called — Reserve Officers’ Training Corps — was mandatory for males for the first two years at his college. Advanced ROTC was for the guys who liked spit-shining their shoes and making the military a career — or so he thought.

Then, as the Vietnam War heated up, it seemed like a good idea to enter the military as an officer rather than be drafted. So, he signed up for another couple of years, graduated, got his commission, had assignments in France and Germany, and — oh, yes — Vietnam.

But he stayed out of the jungle and avoided having to shoot anyone—or being shot at—as far as he knew. But he had lost three of his men to an enemy land mine right before he was scheduled to return to the States in 1969 — 50 years ago.

Two of his college classmates also were killed there. One, three months after his arrival in 1966, and the other as his one-year tour of duty was almost up in 1967. So, the old veteran asked the alumni office if they might arrange some sort of tribute to them during the 50-year homecoming and reunion weekend. But he didn’t hear anything back.

When the old veteran arrived on campus, he decided to check out the new facilities and old haunts. He asked directions and found the offices of the Military Science Department. The Army officers seemed so young. But one already had two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the main conference room were easels holding large poster boards with the names, pictures, home towns, unit insignias and details of the Vietnam assignment and deaths of the old veteran’s two classmates.

A nice tribute, he thought, and moved on to other activities and an alumni dinner that night. At the dinner was the widow of one of the classmates who had been memorialized. They had a daughter. The widow had later remarried and had two more children, but had been widowed again.

The old veteran began thinking about the tribute in the Military Science Department. He had his phone with him when he was there earlier in the day, why hadn’t he taken a photo to show her?

The next day at a lunch honoring the 50-year graduates, the old veteran again saw the widow, who also had been a member of that graduating class. He said to her, “Would you like to see the tribute to your husband at the ROTC building?” She seemed eager. So he found someone from the alumni office who called someone from the Military Science Department (it was Saturday so no one was there) to come open the building. The alumni office arranged a golf cart to take the old veteran, the widow and a friend of the widow to the ROTC building at the far end of the campus.

A young soldier arrived and opened the doors. But the poster boards had been taken down. The young soldier knew right where they were though, and she set them up again. As pictures were taken and talk centered around the lives of the young men memorialized, the old veteran choked up and began sobbing, apparently releasing some long-suppressed emotions about these deaths and the loss of his own men in Vietnam. He hugged the widow, who began to cry as did her friend, and the young soldier. He felt a little embarrassed for causing such a scene, but maybe a little better, too.

The young soldier said the widow could have the poster board with the tribute to her husband, if she wanted. She wanted. She said she would give it to their daughter. The daughter had his eyes, she said.

Later, the old veteran got an email from the friend of the widow who had accompanied them to the Military Science building. She wrote: “You may never realize fully how much the ceremony honoring her husband meant to her. It is becoming a healing presence within her after decades of burying the reality of her past.”

The old veteran felt good about that, too.