We lost Shifty forty years ago tomorrow.

More than ten years ago, I was asked to speak on our town green on Memorial Day. This pretty much covers what needs to be said about Shifty:

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Bob Kilpatrick -- Remarks at East Hampton, Connecticut, Memorial Day 1998 (Monday, May 25, 1998)

In 1868, five years after President Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg of those who “... gave the last full measure of devotion ...” General John Logan told his troops to decorate their graves and ordered those troops to “... guard their graves with sacred vigilance.”

And here we are in 1998, 130 years later, and Memorial Day is in danger of becoming simply another day off from work, a day pretty much like any other.

Today started off for me much like any other day, except this morning, for the first time in almost thirty years, I laced up a pair of jungle boots that I last wore in Vietnam. I spent a year there as an Army helicopter crew chief, twenty years old. These boots are special, almost sacred, because like the boots of American soldiers since 1776, they have been soaked in blood. None is mine. Most is the blood of others who were carried or dragged from the fight and onto my helicopter. Many were lucky and survived, but too many others did not. Part of each of those good men, and part of all the other good men and women who gave their lives in that bitter war and in all the other terrible wars before and since, is here with us today.

My friend John Schiffhauer, like me a Huey helicopter crew chief, laced up his boots on the first of March, 1969, a day that began for him, and for the half-million other Americans in Vietnam that day, much like any other. But when that day ended, John Schiffhauer was twelve hours dead, shot and killed in the open door of his helicopter, changing forever the lives of his young wife and the new son he never saw.

John Schiffhauer, whose blood is on these boots, has been gone now for more years than he lived. But his memory lives with us here today and his memory lives on Line 7 of Panel 30 West of that black granite Wall in Washington, DC; the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Anyone who thinks war is anything but utter madness needs to visit that Wall.

A helicopter pilot named Jim Schueckler is a volunteer “Visitor Guide” who helps people find names on “The Moving Wall.” The Moving Wall is a smaller, traveling version of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The following is some of what Jim hears when he helps out there:

“An uncle of one of the men whose name is on the Wall remembers: ‘I took him hunting. I was the one who taught him to like guns.’

“A buddy recalls: ‘He went out on patrol in my place that day,’

“A teacher looks and remembers: ‘I taught four of these boys.’

“Others recall: ‘He delivered my newspaper.’

‘He went to our church.’

‘My son played football with him.’

‘We were classmates for twelve years.’

“And others think aloud: ‘Such a waste. Such a terrible, terrible waste.’

‘I hope and pray we never go through that kind of war again.’

‘Is this the price of peace?’

‘Will mankind ever learn?’

“But a mother simply says: ‘I came to see my son’s name.’”

John Schiffhauer’s memory lives, not only in those of us who go to see his name but also now in three grandsons who will someday go to see his name. His young wife, alone in 1969 just days after burying her husband, had the incredible courage to write to us in Pleiku. This is just part of what she wrote:

“To The Officers and Men of the 119th Assault Helicopter Company:

“...we who love you live in our own little hell every day that you are over there...

“...for some of us the day comes when we are told that our husband won’t be coming home...

“...the letters stop coming, and there is nothing but emptiness as the one last link is broken. All that is left is to thank God for the precious little time we once had, and to cherish the baby that lies asleep in our arms. Instead of the husband who was so strong and so brave we are left with a folded flag -- symbol of the freedom he fought and died for.

“My little son is now 2-1/2 months old, and looks exactly like his daddy... Someday I will teach him to love this folded flag as much as Johnny did.

“... the days seem suddenly so long and dreary. May God bless you brave men and keep you safe.”

That folded flag was presented to John Schiffhauer’s widow with the traditional words, “On behalf of the President of the United States, and with the thanks of a grateful nation, it is with deep regret that I present you with this flag...”

These are words still spoken every day next to quiet graves in hometown cemeteries all across our country. They are words that might seem to be a final expression of gratitude for honorable service, and they are final except for this day we now call Memorial Day, the one day of every year when grateful people like us come together as we now do, to say, “We remember,” to the families of our absent friends, and the day we promise them once again that we will faithfully guard their graves with “sacred vigilance.”

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Here's to our absent friend, Shifty.