Memorial Day, 2013

Daddy, E. L. "Jiggs" Ritchey

Today my husband gets a day off from teaching school along with millions of other people in our country. Memorial Day is a day to remember the people who have served and are presently serving in our armed forces. What a daunting task! To be in the military to risk one's own life and give up the comforts of home is unthinkable to me. I am grateful to all of the men and women serving at home and abroad to protect us from enemies who wish us harm.

God bless all of the armed forces who have gone to war over the years. Fighting, dying doesn't seem right to me, but I was not ever in any position to fight. I'm neither strong nor brave. My dad and his 3 brothers all went to war back in the 1940's. One of those brothers was lost after surviving the battle at Midway when his aircraft went down somewhere in the Pacific only six weeks later. My grandfather suited up for WWI. Those were wars before my time.

Johnny E. Ritchey & Me

Two years after I was born, the Vietnam War broke out in 1955. Later, in about '62 or '63, my brother, Johnny, was drafted and enlisted in the Army. He was only 20 or 21 years old. I would have been about 10 or 11 years old at the time and I recall being scared for my brother leaving home and his newlywed to go off to training where we were not supposed to correspond with him.

Johnny often went hunting with our granddad and was really good with a rifle. He was also very smart and had graduated from high school in the top 10 of his class. He received a scholarship to Lamar University to pursue an engineering degree. He completed 2 years of college, then dropped out to make a living for he and his newlywed. That was when he was drafted. As long as he was in school, he could be exempt from the draft. Dropping out of school and his number coming up sent him further away from home.

Johnny achieved the rank of captain and was in charge of a platoon at one of his boot camps. He once told me a story of a time when he was awaken by a private bursting into his barracks yelling that one of his men was drunk (or on drugs) shouting and waving a gun around. Johnny said he ran out and had to wrestle the crazed man to the ground putting him in a head-lock. He told me the incident happened fast and really scared him. With all that adrenaline pumping through his veins at the time, he had not noticed the wild man turning purple in the face until another private told him. He immediately let go of his grip so the soldier could breath again, almost killing the man. War didn't just happen on the battle fields. As captain of his platoon, he told of another guy who was terrible at using a syringe during their medic training. No one wanted to be his partner and get stuck by that guy, so Johnny volunteered. Ouch!

From Fort Poke, Louisiana, he flew to Japan. From there, a large percentage of the soldiers were sent to Vietnam to fight. He was spared from the 80 sent and got to stay in Japan where he worked with the medics, and had other duties I don't know about. I do know he drove a bus and picked up wounded who were flown to a hospital in Japan from Vietnam.

As a young teenager, I remember those months we didn't hear from Johnny and we wondered if he was dead or alive. I remember being scared that my brother might be hurt. We didn't even know if he was still in Japan. After waiting for many months, my dad got information when he corresponded with Johnny's superior. I believe that Johnny was ordered to write home. He was still stationed in Japan at the time. As I look back I believe he was homesick, sad and depressed. His marriage of 2 years was failing back home, he didn't want to be there in the Army, he wanted to be home working on his marriage. It was hard on a new marriage to be so far away in a foreign country during war times.

My brother never told me about what must have been the horrors of the wounded he picked up on the bus he drove or how they had suffered in the killing fields. Soldiers don't want to talk about the blood or their buddies who were mangled or never returned. The stories I told here are only a few of what Johnny ever told me about the Army. I'm certain to have my facts a bit confused, but that is how I remember it. I never even saw a picture of Johnny in uniform. I guess there is one somewhere, I just never saw it. There was a lot I would ask Johnny today if he were still alive.

God bless those men and women who enlisted either willingly or not, who served so we can have a free America.