Tom was an elementary school classmate of mine. I remember him as a bit shy with a ready smile. He had a gentle soul. After sixth grade, I went away to boarding school while Tom and most of my former classmates went to the local junior high and high school.
Several years ago, I reconnected with Tom. I had such a good time at the 50th class reunion with my boarding school class that I decided to double-dip by attending the 50th reunion for the class that I would have been part of had I continued in my hometown’s public school system. I was glad that I did. I reconnected with 10 of my elementary school classmates, seven of whom, such as Tom, I hadn’t seen in 56 years.
It was easy to reconnect with Tom. How could it not be with such a friendly and unpretentious fellow? We made small talk. Although I knew that Tom was a military veteran of the Vietnam War, I assiduously avoided asking about that part of his life. I had heard through the grapevine that Tom had had an extremely stressful tour of duty in Vietnam. While I was going to school, dating, having a blast playing intramural sports, attending concerts, and so forth, he was dodging bullets and boobytraps in the jungles of Vietnam. (If you want to get a sense of how precarious life was for an American GI in the jungles of Vietnam—and how maddeningly bewildering it was for many—I recommend the 1980s-vintage movie “Hamburger Hill.” The strength of that movie was how un-preachy it was. It simply depicted what the Vietnam War was like for some of our troops.) There was no way I was going to risk introducing a cloud into our happy class reunion by talking about ’Nam. Instead, our conversation remained focused on happy topics.
I learned that Tom had married his high school sweetheart, raised four kids, worked for the same small business for about 45 years, and remained an enthusiastic fan (as I am) of our hometown’s professional sports teams. In short, he was Mr. Normal. I enjoyed my visit with Tom tremendously, finding him to be the same super-nice guy he always had been. He seemed like the epitome of the American veteran who served our country in uniform and then returned to civilian life, left to cope with the mental traumas of war as best he can.
Last month, I received a phone call from one of my other elementary school classmates. John called me to tell me that Tom had taken his life. I’m in no position to state authoritatively why Tom did this, but if I were a betting man, I would say he just got to the point at which the horror of his memories of Vietnam got to be too much for him. I think he just got tired of carrying them around with him.
The place Tom chose for his suicide was telling. He went to the park just three blocks north of where our elementary school had stood and just on the other side of the raised railroad tracks from where Tom went to high school. That park was a favorite retreat for us kids. In its two or three acres, we played on the swings and slides, had some great games of capture the flag, had picnics, and, on hot summer afternoons, welcomed the abundant shade provided by dozens of trees. That park was a place of peace, play, and innocence—a million mental miles away from the cruel arena of war.
I think at the end Tom went back in his mind to his happy childhood—that blessed, carefree time before fate drew him into the hellish jungles of Vietnam. He had bravely carried on with his life for more than half a century after his Vietnam experience, but he saw and experienced things that no person—particularly one as kind and sensitive as Tom—should ever have to endure, and I believe that those traumatic memories at last became more than Tom could bear. I’m sure he would have wanted to delete those images from his memory banks, which for many of our vets, is a mission impossible.
Rest in peace, Tom. And my deepest thanks to all our other veterans. May you each find peace and comfort for whatever awful things you encountered during your service to our country.
