Jim Goldsworthy, Columnist
Cumberland Times-News
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A couple of dozen photos have been mounted on the back wall of an elevator I ride now and then, and the newest addition was one I hadn’t expected to see.
Stunned, I stared at it for a few moments before pushing the button for the second floor.
Like the others, it was a picture of a man, and it bore his name and two dates. Some of those men had been my friends. Now, like Lincoln, they belong to the ages.
I walked out of the elevator into the social hall of Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 172, where another friend wanted to show me a plaque he had just mounted on the wall. It contains the names of chapter members who have died since returning from that war. More additions are expected, and — like the elevator wall — room is available for them.
Some time ago, a Tennessee man named Carl Davis contacted the newspaper in search of a Cumberland man he served with in Vietnam. Carl’s health was in precarious condition, and he wanted to thank Bill Gunter for saving his life before it was too late.
I had to tell Carl that Gunter had died some time ago, but he was able to track down some of his family and talk to them.
Carl’s health improved, and he wanted to come to Cumberland, where Gunter is buried, so he could pay his respects. I was looking forward to that because we had become friends over the telephone ... but then, he died. His nephew Joe, who also has become my friend, told me he was at peace when it happened.
When I wrote about Carl and Bill, I said there should be a memorial for the men and women who survived that war, but died before their time because of what it did to them.
I have been four times now to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which bears the names of five men who went to my high school: James Gilbert Bosley, Craig Ward Haines, Samuel Gilmore Umstot, Wendell Lee Brown and Robert Thomas Taylor.
There is no Wall for Carl Bruce Davis, William Pierce Gunter or a few more I’ll tell you about today. Their names I will withhold out of respect for their families ... but trust me, there are countless others whose stories are no different.
One man I encountered only a few times, and he was already dying when we met. We became friends almost immediately — just like Carl and I did.
He was waiting for a new heart when the one he was born with gave out, and there was nothing anyone could do.
Another man became my friend long before I started associating with the chapter. We lived a few blocks apart, and each time I drove past his house and he was out on the street, I would stop and talk with him.
When Chapter 172 took a bus to Washington, we went to the Wall. He was in line going in while I was coming out, and when our eyes met, we turned and saluted each other.
A couple of guys have pointed to his photo on the elevator wall and told me, “That’s one I really miss.”
One of my buddies from the chapter called me on a recent Saturday morning to meet him and his wife for breakfast.
Another man I knew was there with his wife, and he smiled, stood up, hugged me and said, “Hello, brother.” That moment will stay with me for a long time, because it was his picture I just saw for the first time on the elevator wall.
Nobody knew anything was wrong with him, but he was the type who wouldn’t have let on. No matter his troubles, he was always happy, friendly and glad to see you.
There’s another man I didn’t know at all, because he lived a considerable distance from here. Some of my friends did know him and have told me about him.
An officer, he thought of his men before he thought of himself or anything else.
“On the day man walked on the moon,” one fellow told me, “one of his men died on the bank of a river running through one of the biggest (dungheaps) on earth when he sat down on a booby trap. No one cheered for him.”
Like so many, the young officer came home an old man, terribly different from what he’d been. He was bitter, disillusioned and overcome by loneliness, and he felt that his life had been wasted.
Alone and in a frame of mind that can be understood only by those who have stood at the same brink, he hanged himself.
Another of my friends, who has defied the odds and managed to survive what Vietnam did to him, told me he has had a daughter and two grandchildren die at very young ages.
A question came to mind, but before I could ask it, he said he wondered if his exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange was responsible. Many who served in Vietnam will become diabetics, suffer other health problems and possibly die because of it, and there are suspicions its effects can become hereditary.
“I thought that war had stopped killing people a long time ago,” he said, “but I guess I was wrong.”
Indeed, four new names were recently added to the Wall, those of people who finally succumbed to war wounds received decades ago.
Too many more have war wounds no one can see, and some have talked to me about theirs. Virtually all have told me I should thank God that an accident in high school kept me from going to Vietnam. For reasons I cannot explain even to myself, a small part of me remains unconvinced.
A car parked in one of our visitor’s spaces not long ago had two stickers on the rear window. One was that of a U.S. Army veteran, and the other said, “War Is Not The Answer.”
I waited for the car’s owner to come out so I could thank him for his service and tell him I agreed with the message on his car. We talked for a while, and he said he had been a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. So was Jim Bosley.
Nobody hates war more than combat veterans and those whose loved ones and friends have suffered and died because of it. For all they may feel of justifiable pride and brotherhood, they know that war isn’t the answer. What the answer is, continues to elude us.
We Americans think of ourselves as being free, but I wonder if we will ever truly be free as long as someone else is not. Freedom is humanity’s most expensive commodity, and hundreds of millions around the world have America and its troops to thank for helping to buy theirs. It’s what we do.
Maybe there is a Wall that holds the names of all those who have died because of Vietnam or any other war. We just can’t see it, take rubbings from it and leave behind small items that mean nothing to anyone but them and us.
It’s in our hearts, and it will endure for as long as we who loved them continue to remember them and whisper ... Welcome Home. May you be at peace.
