ORANGE COUNTY VOICES : A Fallen Soldier’s Name Brings Back Past

In 1968, the small, San Joaquin Valley town where I grew up experienced its first Vietnam War casualty. Most of the town turned out for the young soldier’s funeral.

Many years later, I visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington and found his name, Harvey G. Adair, among the thousands inscribed on the wall. A directory listed his birth date, and I was saddened to find that he would have turned 40 years old on that day.

There were others visiting the wall that night, many placing wreaths and objects on the ground, each remembering a war that wounded us collectively.

Adair was killed when he went to help a wounded comrade. The news of his death was followed by an agonizingly long wait for his body to be returned home. His mother, Cora, was a nurses’ aide at the local hospital. When her son was finally buried near the Kingsburg Cemetery war memorial, those she had touched with her kindness came to share her grief.

We had gathered at the war memorial many times as a community on Memorial Day, which was celebrated in the traditional manner. Flags fluttered on veterans’ graves. Bands played. But on this day, there was a great hush and a crushing sadness. A volley fired by a military color guard shattered the silence, interrupted before only by sobbing.

The soldiers stared ahead blankly as one of them presented the flag to Cora. There was a pause as she looked up into his face. She stood, cradling the flag in her arms and walked away with her family, sobbing. For years afterward, she wept while presenting a scholarship in her son’s name at an awards ceremony for high school seniors.

I remembered her grief as I brushed the moisture off the cold, granite wall where so many names were written so closely together. Each left an impression of distinct individuality. I was strangely comforted by the sight of a familiar name. I thought it appropriate that someone from his hometown had visited the wall on his birthday and could sense once again the tragedy of his death at age 20. That is what memorials are for. To remind us.