Letters From Gulf Express Love, Fear

Another upbeat letter from Timothy Reyes arrived on La Verne Avenue the other day. In it, the 20-year-old sailor on the Saratoga was chatty as usual, promising to send home more decorative patches from fighter squadrons assigned to the aircraft carrier.

Reyes made it a point to tell family members that he loved them. “I love you, Mom,” he wrote. “I love you, Dad. I love you, Steph. I love you, Baba. . . .”

At the very end of the letter, in an unexplained afterthought, he wrote down two words. Their meaning was at once unmistakable and unbelievable to parents Steve and Rachel Reyes.

“Rose Hills.”

Shocked, they first tried to console themselves with the hope that Timmy might have been using a code to convey a joke or special message. He hadn’t hinted at death in any of the previous letters or phone calls home.

But after rereading the letter and talking to relatives in the days that followed, Steve and Rachel sadly concluded that Rose Hills Memorial Park, the sprawling Whittier-area cemetery next to the San Gabriel River Freeway, was on their son’s mind. After all, many family relatives and friends, including Tim’s maternal grandparents, were buried at Rose Hills.

“There’s where he wants to be buried,” his mother concluded, wiping away the tears.

Tim Reyes is one of four boys from a two-block sliver of La Verne in the Gulf. The other East Los Angeles boys from the street--Marine Manual Castro, 23, and William Martinez, 20, and Adrian Yracheta, 21, both of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division--also write home regularly.

But Reyes, a member of the elite Navy SEAL group, already has had one close call during his ship’s Middle East deployment. He narrowly escaped death Dec. 22 when he dived off a ferry that capsized in rough seas off the Israeli port of Haifa. Twenty-one sailors assigned to the Saratoga were killed.

His parents had no way of knowing whether that experience was weighing on his mind. Since he last telephoned on Christmas Day, his letters have been their only source of information.

For Rachel and Steve, ages 46 and 44, each word written by Tim is precious:

“Hi there, young ones (meaning Mom & Dad). How are you children doing this day?

“Well, I have a few minutes to spare this night and wanted to write you all to tell you, yes, I still love you, and yes, I still miss you in a tearful kind of way.

“Since we entered the Red Sea, I’ve been thinking, actually being overwhelmed by the thought of you, ‘my mother and my father.’

“Well, I better get back to the basics before I get a little teary here. And right now, under these circumstances, we could kinda do without them.”

According to close friends and relatives, Tim Reyes, who probably writes home the most of all the four La Verne boys in the Gulf, is a caring person.

He has sent home numerous gifts for family members--a flute for a niece, an array of military patches and other regalia for his father.

Like his other letters, this one--written Jan. 9--was sprinkled with military jargon, recounting, among other things, his search for more gifts.

“Dad: I just need one more patch and you will have all the squadron patches. The patch I’m hunting for is the VAY-132 Scorpions A-6 Intruder plane. It’s a pretty unique patch, and is a hard one to get with the population we have on the ship. But somehow, I’ll manage however. I hope you like all the patches I did retrieve for you. You have a nasty little collection that’s really worth some money.

“Mom, I sincerely hope you love or at least like the gift I bought you in the holy lands (‘Israel’). I retrieved it for you in this really cool mall there. Anyways, I do hope you like the vase.”

At times, the letter seemed almost childishly poetic.

“Mom . . . the very lovely and young lady, my mother of a thousand and one traits. Well, like the promise the moon made to rise each night . . . shine (on) us from the shadows of the night, my promise is also very true to the words. Like I promised you, Mom, I have come through once again (hooray for me!)

“Anyways, I must be carrying on. But don’t forget I love Oreo cookies just as much as I love you!”

Although the war has overtaken some passages in the letter, Tim’s parents nevertheless have memorized a plea for peace from their son.

“Pray (Saddam) Hussein comes to his senses and wises up. And pray for the safety of my fellow comrades.”

When they first received the letter, its conversational tone, complete with occasional misspellings, were comforting. Same old Timmy, they thought, always with the jokes and promises of more gifts.

The ending also was reassuring. Eight different family members got their own “I love you” message from the sailor.

Set apart from them, however, was the small haunting notation at the bottom of Page 5.

They read the words “Rose Hills” over and over again, unable to banish the symbolism from their minds.

“He’s got to remain strong,” father Steve said. “I guess we’ll have to be strong, too.”