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Back in '65 my group had a lead singer. He's on panel 53E now, Ronald E. Parr. The group never got back together after Ron died in that ambush, but we all went on with our lives. Some marched, others protested silently. I joined the Air Force, but they didn't send women unless they were nurses, so I taught electronics and watched the guys leave without me.
Years later, I took my son to The Wall, showed him Ron's name. We took pictures and said a prayer, I left a copy of our big song there between the granite and the concrete. My son and I talked as we drove home, about war and how it hurt everybody it touched, however remotely. I thought he understood. This year he pinned an airborne insignia on his shirt, he's Special Forces now, and I wonder. What else should I have said, or didn't I say it right? Why didn't he get it? It's OK that I joined and did my bit, that our family has its own long gray line, but why him? And as I hugged him and watched him drive away, I thought, well, why not? It's what he knows. We taught him well, me and his Marine Dad. But the soldier I was gives way to the Mom I am and my heart wonders will there be a wall for him someday?
Pat (Dodson) Thibodeau |
