The day America died

As I was scrolling through YouTube videos last night, I came across several from America that reminded me of this story.

John came into my office today – right after I started to hear Mr. Tu's claim in arbitration. The parties and their lawyers were sitting around my conference table when he saw I was busy. He retreated quietly and closed the door making no sound.

Mr. Tu came to the U.S. from Vietnam 4 years ago, and now he runs a small coffee shop in Seattle. On the way home from work one day, he was rear-ended by a black gal from the wrong side of the tracks, and he sued her for his damages. It was all her fault, and it didn't help that she had a petty criminal record three pages long, although I’m not sure why Mr. Tu’s lawyer put it before me, or the defendant’s lawyer didn’t object. None of her criminal record was relevant to any issue.

Today was also the day we learned that Dan Peek, the voice of America died. You know, the voice of a Horse With No Name, Sandman, Ventura Highway, and Lonely People. I love those songs; and I love John like a brother, and he was one of the lonely people today. The band America came together when three boys who were the sons of Air Force pilots stationed in the UK got together to play some music. The rest is history, as they say.

A Horse with No Name was their first big hit in 1972. The lyrics were simple and beautiful, and the music carried you into the desert where they said there ain’t no one to give you no pain.

You see, I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name

It felt good to be out of the rain

In the desert, you can remember your name

Because there ain’t no one for to give you no pain

I gave Mr. Tu a modest award for his trouble and after I wrote up my award, I went to John's office to talk about it. But he had something else on his mind.

John told me about SRB; he wanted to talk about it first thing this morning. It turns out that today was the anniversary of SRB's death in Vietnam, 41 years ago. SRB hailed from Great Falls, Montana and he was the first man to die under John's command.

As luck would have it, John's roots are deep in Montana, too. Spend a few minutes with him and he’ll get around to telling you how his grandparents settled there when horses were a man’s best friend.

When he dropped his college class load to just under the limit for a student deferment, a draft notice arrived, too soon to be a coincidence. Not being one to join only because the government said so, John went down and joined the Marines. Boot camp at San Diego was no sweat for those guys who wanted to be there even though or maybe because they all knew they were going to Vietnam to kill Communists. All red-blooded American boys did that in those days.

Just promoted to Corporal and in country hardly long enough to be in charge of anyone, the CO told John he was the Squad Leader. That means he was in charge of 12-15 men whose job it was to patrol dense jungle trails and kill the bad guys when they had the misfortune to walk into an ambush.

John is a good sized fellow and that meant he got to carry the radio, a PRC-25 known as prick-25, weighing in at 25 pounds. He told me one of his medals came for shooting his radio to keep the bad guys from acquiring it after his patrol was overrun and they had to high tail it out of their position.

I love his story about reciting Robert Burns poetry during a radio check in the middle of the night, something only an English lit major would do.

One day on his first patrol as Squad Leader, the usual point man complained about his job, and SRB said, "fuck it, I'll take the point". He headed up the trail and within a few minutes he ran into a booby trap that blew him to pieces.

A helicopter medevac’d SRB out of there, and the next day the Gunny told the men he died of his wounds. This was 41 years ago. Some wounds never heal.

I said, "John, if you're up for a wee dram I'm game." He introduced me to single malt whiskey in law school many years ago. Our usual Friday afternoon, I call it our Boston Legal.

He said, "I have a conference call with an expert witness at 4 and I'll be right over when I'm done."

Shortly later, he brought his half full bottle of Glenmorangie. We finished it off and drank a toast to SRB who died 41 years ago that day. Two lonely people drinking from the silver cup.