Jewells of Thought

Doesn’t it seem like Uncle Tom was always learning something new to add to his resume! Looking at this for whatever time it is now… number 200 it is like a new perspective. He really had quite the capacity for knowledge.

Back at Fort Bliss, Texas the story continues… “for a red eye missile training, which is sort like aircraft locker downer or whatever you call it. It was a rocket, but it shot down airplanes. It was a heat signal device. I trained my pilots. I trained the leader for that and uh… on graduation day we went out to the range and shot down 3 drones. That was fun. We actually shot down a drone which was like a plane, but it’s unmanned and uh… went back home shortly thereafter got orders to go… to Kentucky.”

“Had orders to go to Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Go back to Germany real quick when I was in Germany before I met Helen I was stationed with B Troop 1st 8th Cav the whole time I was there… now we’ll go back to Fort Campbell Kentucky. I was stationed with some infantry outfit, but I cannot remember the configuration names all the numbers and stuff but I was in the reconnaissance section which consisted of jeeps instead of heavy armor. It was jeeps… still reconnaissance and I was trained a reconnaissance leader. I became a reconnaissance personnel and was getting ready to deploy to Germany. I didn’t really want to go back to Germany. I was very depressed about my daughter’s death and blamed myself for my daughter’s death and I volunteered to go to Vietnam.”

Did you do something similar yourself or know someone that fled a situation to a war zone? Does loss bring such pain that you need to almost taste death? Did he really think it would help him?

Even with 20/20 vision I don’t know the answer. Yet I don’t think facing death was the answer. I could analyze the different methods that could have been taken, but it doesn’t seem my place to do so. I am happy that Uncle Tom, knowing Aunt Helen wasn’t happy about his decision to volunteer for Vietnam, took a leave to take her home before he took off to his next destination. Apparently, it wasn’t long enough to change his mind, but they had that time together.

I will never forget the raw emotions I saw on his face and in his voice. This interview was a couple decades or more later… yet loss and mourning never fully heal and adds to the character and experiences of everyone… eventually.