A forgotten man, one of many
by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News
Aug. 9, 2005
I remember my Uncle Jeff’s dog and his car, but I don’t remember my Uncle Jeff. He had raised the dog from a pup, a scraggly flea-ridden mutt who wanted to lick all humanity’s hands. He’d bought the car used, and it soon stopped running, and sat ignored in the garage for years after he died.
My uncle went to war, and never came back. We got his body, his personal effects, and an American flag as a lovely parting present. He was my mother’s brother, and she inherited the car and the dog -- Pepe, a lovable little ball of fur and energy that faded and died ten years later, at about the time I dropped out of high school.
My Uncle Jeff was the only casualty of the Vietnam war I knew personally, but I was so small when I knew him, he’s been completely forgotten by me. I remember talking about him, but I don’t remember him. We have pictures of Uncle Jeff, of course, but even in the pictures where he’s holding me, all I remember is looking at the pictures. He was 19 and I was 7 when he went into the Army. I was 9 when we buried him. As I was growing up, we talked about Jeff less and less.
I wonder about him sometimes -- what he was like, and why he followed Uncle Sam’s orders into the military at a time when so many other young men were going underground or running to Canada. I asked my mom about that once, and she quietly told me that her brother was an old-fashioned boy in a difficult time, and she didn’t think he had ever really questioned the Vietnam war. He got a letter telling him where to report, she said, and he did what he was told. Then my mum said nothing for half an hour, and I learned not to raise the subject again.
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