A Tribute to a Marine

Not knowing that the family had been notified that he had died, he arrived in California and first went to a friend’s house to reclaim a car he had left with him.  He was ready to drive across the country.  His friend’s wife answered the door and fainted when she saw him standing there.  He didn’t know what was going on until his friend explained that everyone had thought he was dead. 

Fred immediately called his wife, when she heard his voice she said, “This is the cruelest crank call I have ever received”, with that she hung up the phone.  When he arrived home in South Carolina, his kids were still there but she had packed up and left and supposedly went back to Japan.  He was never able to locate her, needless to say he tried, and he was persistent.

He and his family continued to live in South Carolina, where he opened a Ceramics Studio and gave ceramic lessons.  He came to visit me in Florida where I had just been widowed.  He brought me a beautiful ceramic lamp he had made for me, I love owls and the lamp base was composed of three owls, he said one for my son, me and my husband.  I have never seen another like it, it was beautiful.  I was having financial difficulties even though I was working and told him I was going to relocate to northern Florida near two of my sisters.  He did everything in his power to get me some help from the military as my husband had been a veteran, but to no avail.

Shortly after I moved to Winter Haven, I got a call from his daughter saying that Fred had a stroke and passed away.  She told me he would be buried in Arlington and invited me to the ceremony; unfortunately I did not have funds available to make the trip.  I often think how Fred, the unstoppable optimist would have loved the ceremony and the fact that his name appears on the Viet Nam Wall (by mistake of course, but nonetheless on the wall).