This put the hookup we planned with Cris and Sue Sullivan in Genoa NV for the Cowboy Poetry Festival in the toilet. Mary caught my stuff and is still sick, but things are moving up. Tomorrow NPS is giving me a retirement send off. Bottom Line, we are on the mend with a few dips.
I have appended below a Memorial Day piece that will explain to some my past and future. I figured it was time before I run out of time.
Semper Fi
Ed
Memorial Day
Khe Sahn combat base , Viet Nam spring of 1967. I stink, my fighting hole stinks, the red
dirt sticks to me like paint, and my
pillow is one of the thousand sand bags we have filled. It's getting dark so it's time to put out the
claymores. We just hope the mist does
not set in and take away all our visibility leaving just the sound of our wire
rattling. We are prepared for a visit by
the North Vietnamese Army, and the ritual struggle with the rats that will
invade our fighting holes in the darkness.
My eyes are still stinging from the heat tab that has warmed my coffee,
when I hear "coming in". The
next moment Lt Gatlin Howell is in my sand bagged castle. Lt Howell is in Bravo Company, 1st Battalion
,9th Marines (B 1/9). I am not even in
his unit, but we are his Marines. He
knows we are ready, but he is doing his head check on us. Is the listening post out? Are the left and right limits in? How are you doing? He always appears when the shooting starts
and he leads from the front and sets the example. Some how when he leaves, my fighting hole
does not stink so bad. We take some
heavy hits, but B 1/9 moves on, and I eventually end up back in the
States. Lt Howell left me with the gold
standard for combat leadership. Lead
from the front, no compromise of your honor, courage, commitment, and listen to
the voices in the fighting hole.
Sixteen years later, I am on the bridge of the USS Denver in
a training exercise in Hawaii .
It is a warm dark evening, and we
are discussing Viet Nam . I present Lt Gatlin Howell as my gold
standard for combat leadership. That is
when I find out that my commander, Col
"Mac" Ratcliff, was with Lt Howell when he was killed at Con Thien. At that moment Lt Howell became more than my
example. He became my burden and my
ghost. So who is this ghost? Lt Howell was of native American extraction
born in Oklahoma , but finished high school in Coloma , California . He enlisted in the US Marines in 1954-55 for
four years, and then took the GI Bill graduating from San Francisco State
College. With a teaching credential, he joined the faculty of Pelton Junior High School
in San Francisco . He has a wife and a young son when the
Marines land in Viet Nam . He believes it is his duty to get into the
fight. He is an ancient Lieutenant of 31
years when he deploys to Viet
Nam on 9 July 1966. He will win the Navy Cross and he will die on
July 7, 1967. One month before his
rotation date home and four days before his birthday. Lt Howell is buried at the San Francisco National
Cemetery . He left behind his wife and two sons. They lost a very special person. His sons did not get to play catch with him. They lost a rock to build a family on. Their sacrifice left us with an almost
impossible standard to live up to.
A couple of months ago, at a regimental celebration, a
Master Sergeant was hugging me and sobbing.
He was thanking me for the leadership he learned in Somalia when I
was his commander. At that moment, I
realized he was not hugging me, he was hugging Lt Gatlin Howell. Veterans around the world search battlefields,
monuments, and graveyards for their comrades that lost limbs, lives, and souls
in the service of their nation. They are
searching for an answer. Is the life that I got to live worthy of those who
lost theirs? This Memorial Day, I will make my walk to tell Lt Howell that
the flame he lit in me still flickers in the Marines that he has touched
through me. This will close a circle.
This Memorial Day, we should all stop in awe of their sacrifice.
Colonel Edward John Lesnowicz
Jr. USMC (ret)