It's My Story and I'm Stuck With It!

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It's My Story and I'm Stuck With it!
A Boy Trades His Superman Cape for Manhood

Infinity Publishing

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Review

R. Victor H. Wood Jr, author of Polishing the Old Brown Shoes
Reviewed at Amazon.com
It's My Story and I'm Stuck with it! shows the path taken by Fred Edwards to escape from his "hard scrabble" life to success in his maturity and his being able to cope with serious health issues in later years. He found a path to success that he could have only dreamed about at an early age. The steps towards his success were intertwined with self discipline, education, mentors, a wonderful and supporting wife, and his always being prepared before life threatening events to enable him to survive. The book was interesting and, at times, demanded all of your attention to realize the pressures he placed on himself to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. The chapter that captured my imagination was "I'd Rather be Sailing". His detailing of hair raising survival experiences on someone else's yacht made one aware of his leadership skills in a civilian setting. The words Fred used to describe the war in Vietnam were insightful. Those who have never been in a wartime situation would find it hard to describe. Fred left no doubt as to the description and horrors of war! The book showed a heads up "squared away" successful man. I would recommend it.

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Excerpt

Chapter 13 - War

Following my first trip to Vietnam, I was honored with a tour of duty in Reno where I would notify mothers or wives whose Marines had been killed or maimed. My staff and I officiated when remains were returned, and again when they were buried. Later, we presented posthumous medals and helped with death benefits and financial matters. In many ways, it was tougher than combat.

When I made the death call in dress uniform at the front door, many gasped, "God damn this war." And more than one sighed, "God damn that (President) Johnson." But never did a spouse or parent curse me or the Marine Corps.

Typically, a mother my age or older would invite me in and, shamble - suddenly round-shouldered - across the living room to pick up a framed boot-camp photo of her Marine in dress blues. She would show it to me and say, "He was a good Marine."

One mother - in a living room with a crucifix filling a complete wall, and a large, framed embroidery on the adjoining wall that read, "Our family is one when all are home," - added "a . . . a . . . damn good Marine." All casualty assistance officers have soul-searing memories, but none as terrible as those the next of kin will keep forever. So here are just two anecdotes.

First, one summer evening, black-haired Gunnery Sergeant Lloyd Glenn, a burly Marine's Marine and hero of two wars, was driving us to a small California town in the official Marine-Corps-green sedan. When we found the block we were searching for, we knew kids would snap a wide-eyed look at us and scoot for their homes, crying, "The car's here. The car's here." But it was 9:30, and we hoped all children would be inside.

"Gunnie," I asked Glenn, "does it ever bother you to make these calls, and tear up their lives, when you and I have survived?"

Glenn was silent for so long I thought I'd overridden the threshold between an officer and an enlisted man. Just as it seemed he wouldn't answer, his gravelly voice rumbled against the dashboard.

"Major, you always gotta' say to yourself, 'Is this something I have to do?'. And if it is, you just do it."

Glenn's answer exemplifies why we call non-commissioned officers the backbone of the Marine Corps.

While Glenn was leading a patrol in enemy territory during the first winter of the Korean War, he stepped onto an anti-personnel mine. As in TV melodramas, he froze, and whispered huskily to his troops to retrace their last three steps exactly and drop face-down on the ground, with their helmeted heads toward him. In the silence, he deactivated the mine by trial and error, but made no error. It was something he had to do, and he just did it.

The second anecdote began on a cold, gray winter afternoon. Grizzly-haired, blue-eyed Sergeant Major Doyle Berry and I groped our way through a tunnel dug through the snow from the roadway to the front door of an igloo-looking house. We were to notify the Marine's mother about the death of her youngest son. But a short, wizened man with watery-blue eyes and sparse, white hair opened the door.

He said his wife was at work, so I had to inform him his son would not be coming home. I asked him to telephone his wife and tell her only to drive home before the blizzard worsened. He did, but he didn't offer us seats, so Berry and I stood, waiting to confront his wife before we made the hour-and-a-half trip back to Reno.

Eventually he rose, placed a fresh log in the fire place, and hobbled over to me. "You have a son?" he asked.

"Yes, I do."

"Why isn't he in this war? Why don't you have to make this sacrifice?"

"He's only 15. In due time he'll go."

And in due time my son, Fred, did go. Berry returned to Vietnam as a volunteer and met his son over there. And the four of us returned.

This doesn't erase one iota of that frail father's anguish about a son who would never, ever come home, nor should it. But it exemplifies the agony of loved ones who to this day suffer the same torment.

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