Hi, Mary Beth-

I guess I'm just venting, but it has been such a long time coming. I'm pushing fifty-five, and have never been to a funeral. I'm not avoiding it, and will not. I just never have.

The hardest part for me is that my friend, Dan Colgan, was KIA while I was in boot camp in my home town, and to me it was just a damnable lie for so many years. Dan and I were in school and Scouts together, hunted and camped together, and his home was another home for me. I had no proof Dan was gone.

At the end of the fifth week of boot camp, my platoon got "best platoon" for the company, and the Drill Sergeant gave us Sunday off. I took several of the guys to my parents' home for dinner, and during dinner I got a call from Joe, a mutual friend, and he told me that Dan had been killed in 'Nam. Joe, Dan and I had been friends for about nine years, and I still couldn't believe it.

I still talk to Joe all the time, and to this day he doesn't remember how he found out - maybe it was just "the buzz" in the neighborhood.

Joe and I last saw Dan in Joe's driveway, and Dan was taking his car to his sister's, to leave it with her while he was away, then going to the airport to depart for 'Nam.

Dan worked after school and saved his money for that shiny red '67 GTO, and bought it as soon as he got home after basic training and ITR, where all Marines learn to be infantrymen, or infantrymen AND whatever else they would be as Marines.

Dan told us that he was scared, and that he didn't think he was coming back standing up. Joe and I tried to encourage him- not that Dan lacked courage. Dan wasn't a "bad-ass", or anything of the sort - but he was a Marine, and that alone showed what he was made of.

Dan was an only son, and the youngest of five. His parents were in their late sixties, and Dan probably would never have been drafted. Several of our friends had been, and others had enlisted. (In fact, I was drafted 3 times- I still have the "Greetings...") and deferred because my Dad had had a major stroke, and quit I my job and took care of him. As soon as he was sufficiently improved, 18 months later, and my younger brother and sisters could care for him, my deferment was revoked, and I enlisted, expecting I'd still end up in Vietnam.

The Sunday I found out about Dan's loss, I was crushed. His family lived only a block away, and there was no way I could find the courage to visit his family. I graduated three weeks later, and immediately went home, changed to civvies, and went to the Colgans' home, and there was no sign of anyone- it looked completely abandoned.

I'd seen no news, heard nothing -not even an obituary. For me, it was all BS until I went to the Wall in '84.

In the past year, thru the Internet, I've found Dan's nephew, two of his four sisters, his former brother-in-law, a high school girlfriend, and several Marines who fought alongside Dan, even though none had a specific recollection of him.
Dan had been in Vietnam two months and five days.

"Talking " with them online has been both joyful and painful.

Even though I live in the DC 'burbs, I've only been to The Wall three times - it just puts me into such an altered state- last Veterans' Day, my
son, Mike, now 27, went with me, and it's still a blur.

Mike promised several years ago to go with me, and this past year was his first opportunity in a long time, because he's a volunteer firefighter, and it is his life. He participated in the Pentagon Flight 77 crash recovery operations last year, and after The Wall, we went there. Mike is one of my heroes. This "kid" has done more for mankind in his last ten years than I have done in all my life, and could expect to do for the remainder of it.

Gotta go. It's late. Thanks for being Here, MB-
and all Y'all...

Tom3