In Memorium II

I never knew either man, never even heard of them. The first? I just stumbled upon his grave one afternoon in a lonely but well-kept cemetery. It was not far from the small town of Marvell, Arkansas, one of those vanishing communities in the Arkansas Delta that sits forlorn and forgotten in these post-industrial days. It is the home area of singer Levon Helm.

 Brenda and her mom were searching for the graves of relatives and I noticed a small headstone. As soon as I saw “U. S. Marine Corps” and “1966,” I knew who rested there.

For some reason, I photographed the marker. Later I looked up the name, Perry Lee Poole. I found it, alongside a photo that could be used as a stereotype shot of the All-American Boy. From the few comments I’ve found, he was. A friend said he loved to fish and hunt and, as a youth, had dreamed of joining the Marines.

In his last letter home to his friend, after recovering from wounds he received, he commented that war was not like it was shown in the movies. He returned to action upon recovery. His name appears on Panel 11E Line 80 of the Vietnam Memorial Wall. Semper Fi, Perry.

Floyd L. Reed, Jr. of Heth, Arkansas was born on 3 November 1938 and was killed in action on 15 November 1965 in the battle of the Ia Drang valley. They say he, “died through hostile action, multiple fragmentation wounds. Incident location: Landing Zone X-ray Ia Drang Valley, South Vietnam, Pleiku province. His unit, commanded by LTC Hal more, stood off an army of North Vietnamese regulars seven times its size for three days, as immortalized in the book and film We Were Soldiers Once, and Young. Reed, is memorialized on the Vietnam Memorial Wall, Panel 03E Line 061.

I never knew him either. I read about his last battle and looked him up. I didn’t know him, but he was a brother. I hope to visit his grave at Edmonson, Arkansas on my next road trip east.

Memorial day makes me think of these two whom, as I say, I never met. I think fellow Arkansan Johnny Cash expressed it best. They are the kind of people who make America great, not those clowns who claim to be running our country now. Talk all you want about “The Greatest Generation,” and they were great. They came home, those from the Pacific Theater, through the Golden Gate, where grateful citizens had moved huge stones into position on the hills in Marin County and painted them white. The stones spelled, for those on the incoming transport ships, “Welcome Home Boys.”

When the men from the European Theater came home, women kissed them in the streets of New York.

Perry Lee Poole and Floyd L. Reed came home quietly to a divided country that has never reconciled itself with their service. It doesn’t matter. The two represent a higher form of greatness, the ultimate sacrifice, offered voluntarily, for an ungrateful nation. We are so fortunate to live in a country that produced such men. It is already great. Let’s keep it that way.