Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm:
When my brother’s body was sent home in Summer 1966, he was accompanied by PFC Tim from the US Marine Corps. Tim’s job was to stand at attention next to my brother’s closed casket during the wake and funeral procession. The wake was 3 days and Tim duly stood stoic. I ignored him, my brother D played cards with him, my mother adopted him immediately and fed him and made him feel at home as best she could. My father was quiet.
Mom kept up a correspondence with Tim. His last letter was dated August 1967 from Vietnam. He wrote: “Guess what I found out today! There is a guy in my platoon from your town. His name is JB. He is one of our machine gunners. He says he knows your family. He said something about K dating his sister.”
Three weeks later, Tim and JB were killed in the same firefight. For you number people, this happened one year one month and one day after my brother’s death. JB’s sister S became my first lovely wife. While we are no longer married, we are forever Gold Start Siblings. God Bless America.
kongoboken 