Telling Our Stories

  I just got off the phone after talking with Ricky Johnson for an hour and a half about his dad, Willie.    Willie was a 35 year old African American from South Carolina, with a wife and six kids.   What did I, a 20-year-old single white kid from  Quincy, Massachusetts have in common with him, other than being stationed in  Viet Nam with the 11 th Armored Cavalry Regiment?    Well, living with someone in an Armored Cavalry Assault Vehicle (ACAV) for six months will make for close relationships.   Willie was a career military soldier, our First Sergeant, a leader, advisor,               confessor, and friend.   He was firm but fair and full of life.   He even taught me to play pinochle, a card game I had never played before meeting him and have never played since.   Also, I never called him Willie, it was always “Top”.   Top is a standard term of affection for a First Sergeant.    He was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) just a few feet from me.   One thing about combat is

  Who knew that my husband Paul and Donald would become buddies?  They were roommates who shared a very small room for over one year at Duxbury's Bay Path Nursing Home.  Visits by me to both of them occurred daily.  I would not know I was in a nursing home when I opened the front door.  But when I pressed the second-floor elevator button and the door opened, I was overwhelmed with the mixed smells of bleach, disinfectant, stale food, and body odors. Donald and Paul were the perfect roommates.  There was only one tv in the room and it belonged to Donald.  Luckily they both liked to watch the same program on Donald's tv - mainly sports.  When I walked into their room each day, the volume was always set at 100 and I could hear the blasting tv from way down the hallway.  The three of us watched "The Price is Right" every day - our favorite show.  When each prize was shown, we had to guess the price and the one who came the closest won.  If a living room set was show-cas