"I, Gordon Darragh, do solemnly swear (or
affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States
against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and
allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the
United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to
regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me
God."
I said those words on June 20, 1967, at the Armed
Forces Entrance and Examination Station on the Seattle waterfront as I began my
enlisted career in the US Army. It’s
hard to believe that was 50 years ago, my 20th birthday(!).
It was not until nearly 30 years after my
discharge at Fort Lewis (now Joint Base Lewis McChord) that I got in contact
with my comrades from Phu Hiep and, indeed, basic training. Like so many of us Vietnam vets, I had put
everything, material and emotional, away for the previous thirty years. My eldest son Peter was in the 9th
grade and had to do a assignment concerning the history of his family. The title of the project he chose was “My Dad
in Vietnam.” As a result, I had to dig
into the stuff I had brought home with me from many years before. I was amazed at everything I found in those
old boxes...photos, MPC (military payment certificates), orders and other
things. Pete’s project was the opening I
needed for me to tackle my time in the Army.
Thank you Pete!
It was sometime after Pete’s project that I went
on my Macintosh and did an internet search for the “225th Aviation
Company.” I was blown away when I found
a trove of information about the company in which I had voluntarily spent
twenty-eight months of my life so many years earlier. I even found my name in official Company
History! I also found a link to the OV-1
Mohawk Association, and an address to send a membership application to join.
I sent my twenty-five bucks in (I think that was
how much it was in May 1998). A few
weeks later I went to Guatemala on a mission trip through our church in
Kirkland. When I returned, there was an
envelope with a roster of the Association’s membership. I had a trip to Los Angeles immediately after
I got back from Guatemala; on the plane I opened the membership packet and
poured over the roster looking for people I knew in Vietnam. I found quite a few names I recognized
including Tony Chapa. Bill Page and Ron Peterson. Wow! These were guys I don’t think I had thought
about for years, and now memories came rushing back!
Karin and I then went to my first reunion in 1998
in Lost Wages, Nevada, and renewed friendships with men I had not seen in
nearly 30 years. It was a weekend filled
with wonderful encounters, like the first time I saw my former platoon leader Joe
Beckham since I had left Phabulous-Phu-Hiep-By-The-Sea. Karin and I were walking through the bar at
the Four Queens when I saw Captain Beckham.
He saw me but didn’t say “hello” or “good to see you Darragh” or “glad
to see you and your wife.” Joe just said
“Shave off that damn beard!” I would
have expected no less!
Well, I celebrate my 70th birthday in
a few days, and also the golden anniversary of my starting active duty in the
US Army on June 20, one of the proudest moments of my life. I’ve mentioned my Lord Jesus in other blog
articles, and I will mention him again because he has been instrumental in my
walk through the past 69 years. As a kid
I remember that he was tugging at my heart when I would watch a Billy Graham
Crusade on TV, and again in elementary school when our neighbors the Scott family
would invite me to their Baptist church youth group, and when I was invited to
a high school youth group where I “accepted” the Lord.
The war came along and I was under threat of the
draft, so I fooled them and enlisted to become a photo lab tech so if I had go
to the war zone, at least I would be doing something that would not put me in
the direct line of fire. There I met
Captain Larry Stallard, who introduced me to Bible study because he used to
work with the Navigators. These were all
ways God was in my life leading to my eventually and wholeheartedly asking
Jesus Christ to save me when I had seriously considered killing myself in the
summer of 1971.
And Jesus has been real to me ever since! As someone has said, “I don’t know what the
future holds, but I know who holds
the future.” And the future will be fine
since Jesus is in my life. (Thus endeth
the preaching!)
Thank you all for your incomparable friendship. There are no words to explain how much it
means to me!
