Salute to Dead Recalls Vietnam Tragedy

Richard Lee McNeish, private, Marine Corps, Mercer, Pa.

Frank Charles McNelis Jr., airman, Navy, Pasadena, Texas

Patrick Robert McNelis , medic, Navy, McKeesport, Pa.

Anthony Francis McNellis, sergeant, Air Force, Altoona, Pa.

William Robert McNelly, private, Army, Garden Grove, Calif. . . .

*

I had not planned to attend any of the 96-hour continuous readings of the Vietnam War dead in the courtyard of the new Mission Viejo Library.

Not that it wasn’t a fine idea. Volunteers began Saturday morning reading the names of the 58,619 American casualties in alphabetical order. The readings will continue round-the-clock until completed at noon today--Veterans Day--before ceremonies at the city’s Community Center on Veterans Way.

But for me, Vietnam was another lifetime. Most who know me now don’t even know I served there. Besides, I knew the Mission Viejo event--a spoken salute to those killed--would be covered in other parts of the newspaper.

I changed my mind after the dream. Most Vietnam veterans will tell you that the one place you can’t escape that part of your past is in your sleep. And Friday night, I had one of those confounded dreams.

They’re rare these days, 26 years after I flew out of Da Nang’s U.S. air base to return home. But there I was, once again back with my old Army unit at the 37th Signal Battalion, just a few miles from our headquarters at China Beach. I knew this dream had to be triggered by the ambitious reading about to take place in Mission Viejo.

I also knew then what I wanted to do. I became anxious to see who would be reciting name upon name at that library in the long hours before dawn, addressing a vast, empty courtyard. I wanted to touch upon the lives of others who might have been to Vietnam.

When I arrived about 2:30 a.m. Monday, Joseph Barney of Lake Forest was reading from the early “M’s” to an audience of five. Barney now teaches international marketing at the University of Phoenix in Fountain Valley. In Vietnam in 1966-67, he was an Air Force captain with the 460th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, stationed just outside Saigon.

“When I heard this was going to take place, I just knew I had to be here,” he explained to me later.

Following Barney was Thuy Reed of San Pedro. She was born in Vietnam, and married Harvey Reed, whom she met there during the war. He had served in Vietnam for eight years, first with the military and then with the U.S. Embassy. He comforted his wife as she completed her reading in soft sobs.

She told me through her tears: “So many names, so many names. I just kept thinking, 19 was the average age for those killed. My daughter is 19. Would she have survived?”

Marine veteran Bill Cook of Mission Viejo was there to read a section of the list of casualties. He had chosen this time of morning especially so he could read the name of a dear friend, William Robert McNelly. McNelly was a Green Beret killed on July 4, 1969. Independence Day. Cook arrived wearing his friend’s old Army camouflage pants.

“We were buddies,” Cook said solemnly.

McNelly and Cook did not serve in Vietnam together. Cook explained: “I was coming back from Vietnam and landed at San Francisco [International] Airport. We happened to meet there and learned we were both heading to Southern California. I lived in La Habra and his family had just moved to Garden Grove. He didn’t leave for Vietnam until after we’d known each other quite awhile. His father had been in the Army. I think he just wanted to prove something to his father by joining the Green Berets.”

As the names were read in a sobering cadence, I noticed a man and woman walk softly with a teenage boy down the row of empty seats. I whispered a question to the gentleman: Was he there to read some of the names?

“Just one,” he said.

At 3:35 a.m., shortly before the first drops of rain fell, Jack Keegan of Mission Viejo read the name that had compelled his presence: “Michael Timothy McCormick, lieutenant, Navy, Honolulu, Hawaii.”

Keegan later introduced me to his wife, Johann, and their 15-year-old son, Jarrett. Keegan’s chilling story:

He and McCormick had been Navy fighter pilots together; they and their wives had become close friends during training. In Vietnam, their base of operations was the carrier Midway in the Tonkin Gulf. Their job was to fly low to knock out enemy SAMS--surface-to-air missiles.

Keegan vividly recalls one mission they flew together in separate jets in late 1972. McCormick’s plane was hit. His bombardier, Ray Donnelly, was killed, and the plane’s canopy was blown away. Somehow, Keegan said, McCormick miraculously landed that plane back on the deck of the ship. McCormick was joined by a new bombardier named Alan Clark. A few months later, McCormick and Clark flew a late-night mission in bad weather and never made it back.

The date Keegan’s best friend was killed was Jan. 10, 1973. On Jan. 27, 1973, less than three weeks later, all parties agreed to a cease-fire. America’s involvement in the Vietnam War came to an end.

Keegan talked about why he felt he had to read his friend’s name: “I’ve been trying to sort this all out. I think what it is, war is so random. It could so easily have been me who was killed.”

*

Wrap-Up: About 12:45 a.m. Monday this name was read in the library courtyard: “Timothy James Lynch, Specialist Four, Army, Washington, Ind.”

That’s my hometown. Tim’s brother was my family’s paperboy. Tim’s father was my barber. In early 1970, a military bus stopped in Washington to pick me up for the trip to Louisville, Ky., for my induction into the U.S. Army. Only one other man got on the bus with me that day. It was Tim Lynch.

We had a friendly chat during the two-hour bus ride. When we got off, we wished each other best of luck, neither of us sure what lay ahead. I never saw him again.

I was a college graduate and got mostly good Army desk jobs, even in Vietnam. Tim had just graduated from high school and went straight into the infantry. He was killed near Chu Lai, a year before I ever got to Vietnam.

As Jack Keegan said, war is so random. And so very tragic.

*

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com