~Upstream and Down~

Kevin Preach It was snowing the day my son called from his college dorm to tell me that a former high school classmate, a Marine, had been badly injured in Afghanistan. The truck he was in had driven over an IED. Kevin had lost both legs and was badly burned. Kevin was in a coma, Dave said. Could I get him the family's address so he could send something? Friends were rallying, supporting Kevin's girlfriend, collecting money for the family, gathering on Facebook to console. There was hope; there always is, especially when you're young. After I hung up, I pulled on boots and gloves and went out to shovel the driveway. I cried . . . because Kevin is too young to suffer like that, because he is one of so many who suffer, and because I didn't think he'd live. He didn't. He was buried today [Feb. 2009]. The funeral and procession to the cemetery were covered on the local news, like so many we've seen through the years: small town, friends and neighbo...

Quantico Marine Corps Base is home of the Officer Candidate School my husband attended back when the Viet Nam War still raged. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ With an eight-hour drive ahead of us, if all goes perfectly, we'll be in Virginia at 1500 today. On Thursday, my husband will join hundreds of former Marines for the 41st reunion of those who graduated from Officer Candidate School at Quantico Marine Corp Base. Most haven't communicated, let alone seen each other, since 1967. Email has been flying for nearly a year as the committee worked to make the reunion possible. And now with the event schedule in hand, we're off. Only it's not called a schedule. It's a sit rep. Actually, Sit Rep it says on the top sheet. "A what?" "A situation report," Bruce says. The three-day agenda is printed in military time. That's as bad as the metric system. So I draw myself a normal clock, and jot the military hours beside the numbers on the normal person's clock. I wi...

My husband was twenty-four in the spring of 1967 when the Army drafted him during the Vietnam years. Finished with grad school, he was teaching in Connecticut, and had plans to marry in three months. Not to me; I was a sophomore in high school then. Deciding that he'd rather be the one giving the orders than taking them, he enlisted in the Marines and made plans to go to Officer Candidate School. He told his fiancée what he'd done, and gave her the option of postponing the wedding, knowing he could be killed or maimed. They married as planned. Their son was born at Camp Le Jeune when his tour in Nam was complete. The thirteen months he spent in the jungles are not something he's said much about. I've seen his medals. I've seen a Vietnam flag he pulled from somewhere. I've read letters from superiors praising the job he did. But I know little. It was hot. He made sure his men were taken care of. He made decisions for the greater good. He gave orders th...