Requiem for Ronnie

"I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell." ~ William Tecumseh Sherman

They lived down the road from us. Ron, his two brothers and three sisters and I with my
brother and two sisters would get together and play; play in the woods by their house; play back by the river that went through our farm. There were the times of hanging May Baskets on one another's door in celebration of the coming of that month when winters blast was finally a memory. There were the games played and little plays acted out. There were the Daniel Boone and Lewis and Clark expeditions back along the river and in the woods. Yes, the romps and play of childhood, a happy and an innocent time of life in that decade of the 1950s. On Sunday, our church had an early service. Their churchs service was a later service. Often as we came home from our church service, we would pass Ron and his family as they were going to their churchs service. That passing of one another became a rite in itself: a familiar cycle and pattern of our lives from week to week giving a sense of comfort and stability. For a few years Ron's father worked the farm across the road from ours. When they were working there, my brother and I would sometimes go over to visit and lend a hand if needed. Sometimes my dad would do custom farm work for his dad; opening a field of corn, combining a field of barley. So it was we grew up together, and in that small rural community, being neighbors meant you were friends. Eventually Ron's father got out of farming, and they moved to town. A number of neighbors came together to help with the move. When they moved out of the immediate neighborhood, contact with the family was diminished. In our small rural school you pretty well knew who everybody was. What words do you use to describe the relationships you have with people in a close setting like that? In high school I got to know Marilyn. She was older, and in my brothers class. We worked on the high school newspaper, we were casual friends, and her younger sister was the first of several young ladies that would break my heart. Marilyn was intelligent, capable of seeing through my naive intellectual presumptions, and at times telling me so. Marilyn had a reddish tint to her hair along with a hint of freckles that gave her a more subtle kind of attractiveness. Those features apparently were inherited from her Irish mother. But while Marilyn was still in high school, her mother died from cancer. With her mothers death, she shouldered responsibility for her father and two younger sisters. I am not sure that some of us realized or were able to even begin to comprehend the depth and magnitude of the loss she experienced at her mothers passing.
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A few times at the high school dances, she would ask me to ask her to dance. I can still see in my minds picture, the look in her eyes, a look of turmoil, of frustration and pain. Was there a fear of somehow being left out; or of being left behind in life? Many of the guys who knew her were probably intimidated by her intelligence, but there were some of us who would dance with her. It did not bother me to oblige her request at those times. I struggled with my own feelings and angst regarding my place in the greater scheme of life. It was as if in those times together on the dance floor, for a few brief moments we affirmed one an-other's validity and worth. Ron was also in my older brother's class. Ron was not an outstanding academic student, though he was intelligent enough, and did graduate from high school. On the other hand, Marilyn was the class' valedictorian. Somewhere along the line they began to date. At first glance, it was kind of an odd match. Ron came across as a simple kind of guy, but Marilyn saw some of those good things under that quiet exterior that others might tend to overlook. So it was they now had each other and were no longer alone.

The war...

It was increasingly in the news. It increasingly became a part of our conversation. More and more it came to loom in the back of our minds; a dark cloud off on the horizon that keep drawing nearer and dominating the horizon of our thoughts; that war going on in a small Southeast Asian nation called Vietnam. We didn't understand it. Why didn't we just go in and clean up on those guys and get it over with? We thought of it in terms of the conventional kind of war fought by our fathers generation only a very short time before. We thought we were right being there, but people were getting killed over there, and there were anti-war protests. How could this be? It was very bewildering. There was in the school an older teacher whose son was in college. His son visited the school one day. He wore insignia clearly indicating he was against the war. There was some uproar by some of the students against his wearing that insignia in the school. Some of us found ourselves torn between our patriotism and our firm commitment to free speech issues. The stable, comforting world we had known was starting to unravel. The first local Vietnam War fatality occurred; a guy recently graduated from the high school and married to a girl in my class who was still in school. Our whole class went to the funeral, and afterwards to the cemetery for the burial. It was a clear cool day; the sun shining, the sky blue with a few white clouds here and there, the young widow weeping. Guys were continuing to be drafted right and left. If you didn't get a college deferment or some other deferment, you were in. A lot of guys ended up going in. When I turned 18, I was given a deferment for college. There I would sign up for the required ROTC classes. Ron joined the Marine Corps rather than be drafted. I think it was after boot camp he and Marilyn got married. One night, shortly after they were married, a few of the family
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and friends got together and we shivareed them. Ron had to haul Marilyn in a wheelbarrow the short distance down to the main four corners of town. Marilyn had to haul him back in the same. The rest of us accompanied them, beating on pots, pans, old farm tools, and whatever, making all sorts of noise and racket. That fall I left for college. Back home I had been a relatively larger fish in a small pond. In going to a major state university campus, I barely registered at the plankton level. It was a strange new world to me. The culture shock was at times almost overwhelming. It is only in looking back that I see how provincial my experience of the world had been up to that point. But even with all of that, I managed to settle in and get passing grades in my courses. I didn't hear much news from back home. I knew Ron was in 'Nam. Then in May 1968, the news came. Ron had been killed: a casualty of "hostile small arms fire". He had been a part of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, M Co. known as "3/5 M". At the time, 3/5M was involved in Operation HOUSTON II which took place May, 1-17, 1968. Being away at college, I wasn't able to be there for Rons funeral. The thought of his being killed seemed surreal to me. The stark reality did not sink in as to what it really meant that Ron was dead. This was at a time when I was becoming caught up my own bewildering emotional turmoil of what it meant to grow up and become an adult. I dont think I realized at the time how Rons death was to become a part of that process. In my sophomore year of school, I was able to come to grips with much of the personal emotional turmoil of the year before. It was in that personal context that after my sophomore year I was back at home spending the summer working at the local factory. It was during that summer when Marilyn came back into my life. Why did she come to see me? To this day Im not entirely sure. Marilyn came by the shop when I had my lunch breaks. She looked terrible, real thin, having lost weight, grief and pain written all over her face. She wanted to talk. I was very new in my faith. I tried to help best I could, but felt totally inadequate. I didn't know really how to help her, but in looking back, I wonder if she was really just looking for someone to listen. She told about going to church, and praying Ron would safely return. But then he was dead. Her unspoken question being, Where was God in all of that? Even now, so many years later, I am not entirely sure how I would answer such a question. In the space of a few years she had lost two very close people in her life, her mother and her husband. I could only in a very inept way tell her what God had done for me. From her verbal and facial response, I realized I was far from making any apparent connection to where she was in her grief and pain. After a few of those lunch time visits, she stopped coming. I never saw her again. I heard a few years later she had re-married and had several children. Apparently, somehow, she had been able to go on with life. Later, her father passed away. One time when visiting down home, I saw her youngest sister singing in the choir at a local church, but I didnt have a chance to talk to her. That was the last time I saw anyone from Marilyns family. From time to time through the years that followed, I wondered how Marilyn was doing: if she had come to knew some measure of happiness and joy in life. It became
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my prayer that wherever she was; whatever she was doing, that she would live happily ever after. Early in my junior year of college the military draft was being changed to a lottery system. If your birthday was drawn with the short number you could kiss your college days goodbye, and plan on forwarding your mail to Vietnam. On our dorm floor we all put a bit of money in the kitty. The guy ending up with the lowest number would take it all. I dont remember his name. He was one of the boys from Flint. A group of guys from Flint had, by chance, ended up living in the same dorm floor. This guy had just gone through a hassle with his local draft board regarding his student deferment. He had just had that deferment restored. We gathered together to watch the drawing as it was broadcast on TV. When that first lottery drawing was over, he had the lowest number of any of us. He got the kitty. I can still picture his dropping shoulders, the dejected look of dismay on his face. My own number was one of the highest of those on the floor. Hed be going. Id be staying. What could I say to him? In the spring of 1970, during that junior year at college, the Kent State shootings happened. The campus of the major state university I was attending erupted with antiwar demonstrations. When passing by one anti-war rally, I saw the demonstrators handing out posters with each poster carrying an individual name of one of the men from Michigan killed in Vietnam. I looked for Ronnie's name. I had the idea in my head that if l saw anyone with it, I was going to take it away from them even if it met a fight. After all, I was the one who had known Ronnie, and in my mind there was something profane and obscene about his name being used in such a manner by a total stranger. I never did see the placard with his name. I sat with one of my friends on a low hill along the main street running alongside of the University campus. The marchers went by; led by the acting University President who has just gave a speech declaring his opposition to the Vietnam War. They marched by carrying their banners and signs. How many of them, I know not, but clearly a number in the thousands. It was the high point of the protest movement, the apex of the radicalism of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Age of Aquarius with its false hopes and empty dreams.

I graduated from college, and the years began to roll by. When down home, from time to time I'd visit the local cemetery. There were the gravestones standing silently in rows arranged amidst the neatly cut grass; monuments to the remnants of the memory of lives lived; people who had lived and breathed, worked, loved, and at the end of their days, had been laid beneath the sod to await the Great Day of all days. People I use to know were there, older people including my grandma, people who had been alive and I had known when growing up as a child. And back in the center of the new section was Ron's grave, marked by the bronze plaque. One time I was there for a Memorial Day ceremony. There were the usual appropriate comments and rituals; the sober faces of those there to remember fallen loved ones. There was the familiar sound of the bugle playing the familiar notes making up the
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Taps. Rons sister was there... I think she was crying, but couldn't tell for sure... If she was not crying, she sure looked like she wanted to. It was in those years I started to hate that war, that miserable war. Nixon had resigned... Saigon fell...What was it all for? I have visited the Gettysburg Civil War Battlefield, and stood at the place of Picket's Charge. I have stood on the battlefield at Antietam, Maryland where blood had flowed like a river. I have visited the Wilderness Battlefield in Virginia, and could only begin to imagine the horror that had raged among that now quiet and peaceful wooded land. Whatever else war is or is not, it is indeed "hell". The years continued to roll on. In the last part of 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait. It was said that Hussein had gas and a whole bunch of nasty things. As the year turned to 1991, it became clear there was probably going to be some kind of military action. As civilians, we had no idea what lay ahead. I had visions of body bags all over the place, and I very much feared it would be another Vietnam all over again... Wednesday, January 16, 1991, the Gulf War started. Upon hearing the news report, I started to think about Ronnie... The memory pictures of those long ago events played across the screen of my mind. I found myself weeping, weeping for Ronnie and all the guys who died and who were going to die. ...I hated war... There have been and will be wars that need to be fought, but nevertheless, to this day I hate war. The images of those we use to know in our younger years are frozen in time. The picture of Marilyn and Ron carried in my mind is the young Marilyn and Ron I knew back in high school. If after all those years I had passed Marilyn on the street, I am not sure I would have recognized her, or she me. Time takes its toll on all of us. Also, a lifetime separates those who once knew one another in days gone bye. How did she remember those days so long ago in light of all she experienced afterwards? How were the passing years molded in light of the fire she went through back then? That is another story not given to me to write. It may be a story never told. My hope and prayer is that the final chapter of that un-known story will somehow read, She lived happily ever after I worked on family genealogy for some years. I knew one of our distant cousins had married Rons youngest brother. The day came when I received the information on that family. There in the list of the familys children was the name Ronald with the notation he had been named after his Uncle who had been killed in Vietnam. Ron was not forgotten. One time, while surfing the Internet, I came across the Virtual Vietnam Memorial. I did a search and found Rons listing. There was a place where those who had known him could leave a note. A Marine comrade had left one note, Dan had left another note: Dan, another neighbor kid who had lived around the corner from Ron and his family and remembered. I added my own note. Ron was not forgotten. Another time when down home, I visited the local library. A lady with a teenage boy came in. They wanted to use the scanner, and my sister, who is the librarian, asked me to show them how to use it. As we talked, I thought this woman looked vaguely familiar. I asked and she told me her name. She was Rons youngest sister, and the young man was the younger of her two sons. She was scanning pictures of the family to use in making a calendar. I looked at the familiar faces. There was a photo of Ron. I thought
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of this story sitting in my notebook back home. I didnt say anything to her about it. It just wasnt the place or time to the place or time to let her know to let her know Ron was not forgotten.

May 2009, and it was Memorial Day weekend.

from so long ago? How long ago had it been?

Why was I remembering those days

As I thought about it, I realized it was about 41 years ago that very month. The emotions started to hit me Sunday morning. We were on our way to church and in my remembering the grief came on like a wall of flood water. It was all I could do to control myself and not just break down weeping right there as I was driving the van. Control was achieved, but my wife could see I was on the emotional edge. We got to the church building and settled into the auditorium for the service. The waves of emotion started to come again as we were singing the hymns. The tears wanted to pour out, but once again I wrestled them under control, and as the service went on, the emotional assault subsided. Later that afternoon, we picked up my married daughter and her two boys, and headed down to the old home town to visit mom and dad. I thought about the cemetery down there where he was buried. I thought about swinging by and once again visiting the grave. We got to mom and dads and settled in and caught up on things. I glanced at the bulletin from the local church mom and dad attended. In the list of announcements was mention of the early Memorial Day morning ceremony at the cemetery. Well, why not? Dad wanted to go and we talked about how we'd have to get up a little earlier then we normally would have wanted to if we were indeed going. At 91 my dad did not get around like he used to, and he mentioned how he used to go to the Memorial Day services but for a number of years had not been able to. OK... Dad and I would go. I knew I needed to. Dad wanted to, and Lord knows how many more Memorial Days he'll be around for. I also knew some of Ron's family would probably be there, and... Yes... That would be a good time to see them. Maybe there would be opportunity so say some of the unspoken things to them that I've wanted to say but never could. We all went to bed, and I set the alarm on my cell phone for an early get up. The wakeup call came. I got out of bed, dressed, and went down to the kitchen. My 7 year old grandson was already awake, and into the play of the day. It was then that I came up with the idea that he also should go with us. He probably would not understand all that was going on, but in the future he would, and would then have a memory of being with his grandpa and great-grandpa at a Memorial Day service.

I got the teakettle going for coffee and found the cereal box. Mom and dad came into the kitchen. I mentioned to my grandson the idea of him going to the cemetery with us. He was reluctant, but did go to talk to his mom about it. I told her I thought it would be good for him to go, and she agreed. We finished breakfast, and the three of us got ready to go. As we drove up to the cemetery, we saw a number of people already gathered at the memorial rock. We found a place to park and walked over. The local high school band was assembled to provide the music. The VFW people were assembled, and off to the side a group of VFW men with rifles stood in line in preparation for the traditional gun salute. Gary and Bonnie came up and I gave them each a hug. Bonnie was Ron's sister. His brother Don was there also, as well as others of his siblings. We didn't have much time to talk as the ceremony was just beginning. The band played the Star Spangled Banner. A high school student led us in the pledge of allegiance, and then read an essay she had written about Memorial Day. A local pastor gave a brief Memorial Day devotion. Another student read the Gettysburg Address. Interspersed somewhere between those things were two other numbers by the band. When that part was all done, the VFW went through their ceremonial Memorial Day ritual, ending with the gun salute. The VFW commander thanked everyone for coming out and the service concluded. We didn't rush away. Several people came up to greet dad, and I saw and met a few more people I had not seen in a very long time. Eventually we made our way back to the van. There was just no way I could leave the cemetery without going by the grave. We settled into the van and I drove back in and around to the lane that went by Ron's grave. As I turned up the lane, I saw that Don was over in the general area too. I had the window of the van rolled down. I drove up by the grave and stopped. There it was; that bronze metal marker, rank, name, branch of service, birth date and death date. Don came walking over and stood by the van and looked too. The emotions started to roll in again. "It hardly seems its been forty years... He said. "and it doesn't get any easier... I replied. "That's for sure..." I stuck my hand out the window and Don grasped it with his... I gave his hand a good but gentle squeeze. He squeezed back. I said, "I think about him too....."
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We looked on silently for a minute, and then bade each other adieu.

Someday I'll go to the Washington, DC and visit "the wall"...

I'll look up his name and see it engraved there along with so many others, others I never knew... But I did know Ronnie... I know when I see it; I'll probably cry my fool head off... It is now February, 2012, some twenty years after this story first began to gestate in my mind. Another chapter has unfolded. I found out that this past week Marilyn passed away. She too is now gone. I never had an opportunity to talk to her again; to tell her that if she wanted to, I would dance with her one more time; to tell her that her life had meaning and purpose; that she would not be forgotten... May she indeed finally rest in peace...

RIP
Written by J. William Newcomer Copyright March 2001, J. William Newcomer, all rights reserved. Revised February 2012 Copyright February, 2012. All rights reserved. Acknowledgments: Larry Terrill; High school friend and classmate of Ron and Marilyn Al Stolz: Vietnam veteran who was in the 105mm Howitzer Artillery Battery 2nd.Bn, 11th Marines "Foxtrot Battery." when that battery supported the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines (3/5- M) during Operation Houston II. An account of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, M Co. ("3/5 M) participation in Operation Houston II can be found at http://www.combatwife.net/NVABaseCamp.htm .