memorial day

in the late 1960's, i was a young girl living in a small vermont village. the vietnam war was occuring on the other side of the planet but all i knew about the war was what walter cronkite reported on the evening news. phrases like the mekong delta or the tet offensive or even the my lai massacre didn't register. the war was a million miles away.

i babysat  alot back then.  i babysat for a family whose son, fred, had recently died in vietnam. i remember the darkened room with the encased flag, the medals, the photographs. the grief in that house was palpable and it made me uncomfortable. i felt like i couldn't breathe. the family appeared typical from the outside.....but walking into the living room and seeing fred's medals and his photograph...and seeing the pain in his mother's eyes...the frappieaus were different...they were decimated by the war.

i thought i knew everything when i was young. fred's mom, lona, didn't seem to get it. vietnam was a terrible mistake. why wasn't she angry?  why didn't she protest against the draft and against our government and against the war? i didn't understand lona's pride in her son's sacrifice. to me, the world had gone mad. while my family ate our supper in our quiet kitchen in our quiet village,  the nightly news on tv erupted with  scenes of napalm explosions and jungle warfare. and escalating body counts of dead american soldiers, like fred frappieau.

i grew up and moved away from that village but thoughts of fred stayed with me. i never knew him. but i knew his death in vietnam  had left a huge hole in his mother's heart. whenever i heard 'vietnam,'  i recalled  his family and the memorial in his living room. to me, fred frappieau and vietnam were inseparable. i didn't know fred and i hadn't fought in vietnam but i saw the grief in lona's eyes and it that was lesson enough.

in 1998, the traveling vietnam wall memorial came to college station, texas, where i lived.  megan was a student at a&m. she and i visited the wall. i remember tracing the name of fred frappieau and feeling such sadness as i viewed the names, over 50,000 of them, of fallen soldiers. i saw lona in 2006 as i sat  in vermont with my sister, cheryl, in the basement of the local elks hall and played bingo. i wanted to tell her about tracing fred's name at the traveling memorial, about the way he had impacted my perception of war...but i didn't dare.  i saw her later that summer at a veteran's parade. she wore a ribbon with fred's photo. and i saw her again last year in a nursing home. i was visiting mom on the rehabilitation side when i spotted lona playing bingo on the residential side. she was suffering with dementia and had no idea who i was but i hugged her....and she smiled.

so today is memorial day and i think of fred and i think of lona...and i think i finally understand.  she loved her son. she refused to forget him and the sacrifice he made all those years ago. so, to fred frappieau....thank you. and to fred riendeau and lee bates and stanley, thank you. and to mac and mike and phil and frank and all the others still with us who were never thanked properly....thank you.