Terry Leigh Mays

I REMEMBER

I remember, as a small child, my birthday parties. I can’t remember one, that there wasn’t at least one family member there in uniform. Any branch, take your pick.

I remember a dress saber that hung on the wall and I knew that I was never to touch it. And I didn’t.

I remember my great uncle Joe, who served in ‘Patton’s Army,’ returning to Germany after the war and bringing home beautiful lift le organdy dresses for me and my sister because ‘we were his favorite nieces.’ I also remember the day he brought home his new German wife.

I remember my great uncle Lou, who didn’t want to talk too much about Bastogne, so we didn’t.

I remember my most cherished possessions back then; my Davey Crockett jacket and coon skin hat.

I remember marching up and down our street, with the boys, with a fake rifle slung over my shoulder… because I’d just as soon ‘play Army’ than play with dolls.

I remember my grandfather, who put his foot down, and took the rifle away from me because he said ‘it wasn’t ladylike.’ He served 32 years in the USN, and now that I’m older and slightly wiser, I can see that, to him, it was something more than ‘just not being ladylike.’

I remember the day that my mother told me that she was ‘getting a divorce,’ because my father ‘lived for the Corp’. Whereas my mother viewed this as ‘distasteful’, I took it in an entirely different way. On that day, I learned the meaning of dedication, and the meaning of Honor. On that day I vowed that I would never lose my father, divorce or otherwise.

I remember in 1959 when my mother remarried – a soldier. I remember my brother being born that December. I remember living in Laurel, MD, shopping at the PX at Ft. Meade, going to school there, and spending my allowance in the same shopping center where, in later years, George Wallace would be shot.

I remember movie theatres, full of soldiers; some with families. I remember small town carnivals, again, full of soldiers, some with families and all of us living on a budget.

I remember the Cuban missile crisis, and my mother packing canned goods and crackers in tins and putting them in the cellar.

I remember living in Texas in 1963 at Ft. Hood. I was 12 years old, and I remember my sister and I blowing kisses at the MP’s every time we came through the main gate on our way to the roller skating rink (we thought this was very funny, because we knew the MP’s weren’t required to salute NCO’s, and this was our way of saluting them anyway) *grin*

I remember November 22, 1963, and being on a military base in Texas, when JFK was assassinated in Dallas. I can still hear the guns being fired at Hood.

I remember moving to Florida in 1964.

I remember in 1965, I cut a list of addresses out of the newspaper. It was a list of names of soldiers from our county that were serving in Vietnam. The article was asking for anyone to please send Christmas cards. And with my mother’s supervision, that’s exactly what I did. They all knew that I was a ‘kid,’ yet the response was tremendous.

I remember sitting up every night and refusing to go to bed until every letter was answered. On Saturday’s, I would chop up the sports section of the newspaper and stuff the sports scores into envelopes and have them ready before the mailman came. I also sent lists of the ‘Top Ten’ songs. I remember in 1965, learning the meaning of sacrifice. Something that I hadn’t even considered… happened. One of the soldiers stopped writing. I was slammed right between the eyes with the stark reality of sacrifice, devastating loss, and helplessness. Yet I went on. I kept writing. I was a 14 year old kid and I wasn’t going to let the other soldiers know. I was going to keep on keepin’ on.

I remember as the 60’s continued on, it got worse – a lot worse. In 1968 a friend and I started sending boxes of chocolate chip cookies to Vietnam. We used our allowance to pay the postage. I would imagine that they were cookie ‘crumbs’ when they got there, but I can’t remember anyone complaining.

I remember watching the news every night at 6. I remember yelling at my kid brother to turn down his record player so I could hear the TV. He would sit in his room every night after dinner, line up all his little plastic soldiers, and ‘wage war’ on his bedroom floor, all the time playing a 45 of Green Berets over and over and over till he about drove me nuts with it. At the time, his father (my step-Dad) was a Top with the 196th LIB in Vietnam.

In 1968 and 1969, my ‘mission’ had expanded from sending cards, to sending cards, letters, broken cookies and kicking anti war protesters in the nuts as each opportunity presented itself. To this day, I’m amazed that I never got arrested. No doubt in my mind, if I had been raised in Calif., I would probably still be in jail.

I remember in fall of ‘68, my sister going off to college and getting tear gassed when Jane Fonda showed up at her campus. The Black Panthers showed up three days after Fonda.

I remember the murders of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.

I remember the protests; I can still smell the incense and I can still ‘see’ people in the streets that looked like they hadn’t bathed in weeks. I remember Woodstock and the ‘Summer of Love’ going on out in Calif. I remember the murder of Sharon Tate, the actress.

I remember Kent State.

I remember Ft. Lauderdale beach one Easter week, erupting into mass riots.

I remember high school friends coming home missing limbs.

I remember high school friends that didn’t come home at all.

I remember my best girlfriend’s husband. He came home, but he was no longer the Bruce that we knew and we didn’t understand why. We just knew he was ‘different’ somehow. More quiet, subdued.

I remember the ‘birth’ of the VVAW and the other organizations that were tied to it.

I remember getting married in May 1972 at age 20. My new husband had served two tours in Vietnam in the USN – the first tour on the Enterprise; the second on smaller boats. He didn’t talk about the second tour too much.

I remember that we didn’t leave on our honeymoon that night because we wanted to be in town the following day for another wedding. A couple that we were very close to, Pete and Bonnie. Pete had also served in Nam, (air traffic) and we always went out together; the four of us.

I remember turning 21 on Nov 1, 1972 and they wanted to take me out drinking, and to the race track etc. But before I went, I ran out that day to register to vote. I wanted to be able to vote in a few days. I wanted to be able to cast my very first vote for the candidate whose campaign platform promised to either ‘do it or get off the pot.’

I remember sentencing my brand new husband (of 6months) to ‘the couch’ for a month because he had the nerve to vote for George McGovern and for even having more nerve to admit it. I can still hear myself ranting… ‘What are you out of your mind? YOU are a Vietnam Vet!!!’ (Actually, I let him off the hook in less than 30 days… I’m not that stupid…) ©

I remember in June of 1974, at the age of 22, burying my father with full USMC and Masonic honors.

I remember the last week of April, in 1975.

I remember the choppers lifting off for the last time. I was visiting friends in Atlanta and I remember someone they knew, a female, commenting as we watched it on TV. She called Scotland her home. She said that we never should have been in Nam that the US had gone totally down the toilet. The owner of the house turned to her, and he said, ‘well Lorna, if that’s the way you feel about it, I think y’all should just git your a$$ right on back over there to Scotland and don’t bother to come back.’ Lorna shut up, and Agnew (yes, really his name) sat back and watched the choppers…

I remember the pardoning of the draft dodgers.

I remember in 1980, another war… another mission to save Pete’s life. After Nam, Pete had gone on to be an air traffic controller in civilian life. In 1980, he was diagnosed with cancer; then re-diagnosed with two different types of cancer. Both types are now listed by the Government as AO related. My mission was for blood. Literally! I was relentless in the hounding of my co-workers, wanting them to donate in Pete’s name when the mobile blood drive unit came to our office. I had one co-worker, who was in excellent health, who I would not allow to donate because he matched Pete’s A+ and he might be needed later for a lot more than one pint. He agreed to wait.

I remember in 1981, Pete going out to the City of Hope in Duarte, California for a bone marrow transplant. His sister was the donor.

I remember him coming back from California only to have his lungs repeatedly fill with fluid and be put in the hospital for ‘exploratory’ surgery.

I remember on April 6, 1982, at age 30, burying the best ‘guy’ friend I ever had, three weeks before his 33rd birthday. I know that guys might not understand ‘guy friend,’ but any ladies reading this will understand if I simply say ‘he was the big brother that I had always wanted, and never had.’

I remember in 1991, when Desert Storm began, making red, white blue and yellow ribbon pins, selling them for $1 and making over $800. I held back no money for materials or for my time. I took the money and bought stuff like shaving gear, socks, paperback books, lightweight sweaters in a variety of sizes and other items and took them to a Vet Center in Dade County. I chose to do it this way because I wanted every dime of it to go to Veterans and not Uncle Sam.

I remember this past February 3, when my step-Dad passed from AO related cancer. He was buried with full military honors.

I remember all of them and all of you, not just every Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

I remember every day. How can I not, when every defining moment and just about every aspect of my life has been touched by all of you?

Be kind to each other. No one will ever understand you as well as you will each other.

You are, and always will be,

Brothers and Sisters.