I post this on Mother's Day weekend and will
continue to do so every year. It makes me remember what a great Mama I
have. I wrote this in 2006, I have edited it slightly. It is called:A Defining Moment
"Looks like Leon is home with all those cars in front of his house", I thought to myself. My 9 year old fist froze in midair as I was about to knock on the screen door. Mournful sobs from the living room told me that something was wrong. I was confused, but somehow I knew not to knock on that door. A few hours earlier, Leon’s family had been the recipient of some dreadfully black news from the Dept of the Army, compliments of the Columbus GA.Yellow Cab Company.
The casualties of the Ia Drang Valley campaign, a battle that involved his dad and my dad, were so overwhelming, it caught the Army flatfooted. Ft. Benning needed assistance in delivering the death notices. Unbelievably, the Army Post enlisted the help of the Yellow Cab Co.
I saw Leon about a week later. Our eyes met briefly, and fell to the dry Georgia red dirt, as we kicked up a few nervous dust clouds with our Keds.
"Wanna play?" I asked quietly.
"Yeah...." Leon replied, “my dad was killed.”
“I know. I came by the other day. I heard your mom crying.”
Silence on the way to the St. Mary's School playground.
Leon only lived two blocks from me. He went to my school. We were in the same class. Even in the midst of this close hitting news, my mind would not allow me to think that this could ever happen to my dad. His dad flew Huey gunships. Mine flew transports. But a tragic event later changed my 4th grade mind.
It was a time in my young life that
has stayed with me for all of my years. My Dad had left earlier in the
year (1965) and was serving in the 1st CAV Division in South Vietnam. He
was flying the Army’s biggest helicopter, the CH54 Skycrane, and its
unusual size was trumped only by its bizarre shape. The pilots were
close, likewise; the families left back home shared meals frequently
while the gaggle of kids watched Batman twice weekly. Same Bat time.
Same Bat channel. 
Sometime during this year, Mom had started
taking my older brother, my toddling sister, and me to Hillcrest Baptist
Church. Jeff and I "walked the aisle" one Sunday, as I felt a real need
to "go down front". Mom prayed for us, took us to see the pastor, and
oncue, during "Just As I Am", we went "down front". I am not making
light of this experience; it did start a spiritual journey on my own
Emmaus Road back then. It is not, however, the defining moment from my
title of this little story. Our own black news soon enveloped our little rental home in the St Mary’s subdivision of Columbus, GA; one of the Cranes had crashed and all crew members had been killed instantly. It was a freak accident, not a direct act of war. The 19 inch black and white Zenith TV glowed with the story, with this cruel caveat: "the names are not being released at this time, until notification of next of kin...."
As the news played this story, it did not take a young boy long to figure out that the odds were not good. The Army had less than 10 of these big helicopters overseas, and the number of trained pilots to fly these behemoths was minuscule in number. If it wasn’t Pop, it would surely be someone we knew.
The defining moment came from a young Army wife, an incident that is
burned into my brain and my memory forever. After LeeAnn was put down
for the night, Mom gathered Jeff and me beside her bed. We knelt in
prayer and I remember this: "God, what has happened, has happened.
Please just give us the strength to handle what is to come." The
security of those words, the power of a praying Mama. Yet as I think about it now, she was 35. Think about that. 35. Three kids, a short career as a school teacher before we were born, and dealing with the dark unknown of an incident that had happened and the possible ramifications of the future for several days . Her prayer was sobering, yet comforting. In her own personal insecurity, she let her children know God’s strength would see us through.
Word finally did come after many agonizing hours. Pop’s life was spared, but a family that we shared spaghetti and Batman with weekly, well, the Yellow Cab death notice changed life for them forever. CWO Al Gajon, a Cajun with a great zest for life, was one of the casualties of that cruel accident.
When Stephen was in the 8th grade, his school took off for the annual Washington DC trip. I wrote down CWO Gajon's name and told him to take a picture of it on that long black wall. He presented it to his Grandpa upon return.
As I have reviewed this defining moment in my life over the years, I am reminded of the following words of Christ: "....how I have often wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her chicks under her wing...."( Mt 23:37).
It is my sincere prayer that there will be an incident burned into my
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