VietNow National Magazine

When Warriors Go Home
Someone said that old soldiers just fade away. But that's not always true. Some soldiers are warriors to the end, always going that one extra mile.

By Juie Thrasher Stuckey

Jim Pleasants (left) and his cousin Tom Barksdale, enjoying a family hike at Whiteside Mountain, near Highlands, North Carolina.

My Uncle Jim died in January. He was a Marine, a Vietnam veteran, a clever country lawyer, a sterling citizen, and a really nice guy.

James V. Pleasants' first assignment in the Marine Corps was to fighter squadron VMF-232, The Red Devils, stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Territory of Hawaii. Within two months, the squadron set sail on the USS Bennington, for Atsugi, Japan, where he flew armed missions in defense of the Japanese islands during the 1958 Taiwan Straits crisis.

When he left active duty, he went to school, and graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1964. He and my Aunt Jeanne had two children during this time, as the conflict in Vietnam escalated.

Doing his duty – more than once

My uncle believed passionately in duty. He felt that the United States had spent too much money training him to fly for him to be sitting around practicing law in Rabun County, Georgia, while a war was going on, so he voluntarily re-entered active military service, and had two tours of duty as a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War.

I am 47 years of age, and I never heard my uncle speak of the Vietnam War. I wrote to my Aunt Jeanne, Uncle Jim's beloved wife of 51 years, to ask her about his Vietnam experiences. This is what she wrote back:

"I'd love to help you if I could. Like most people who have been in our various wars, Jim didn't talk about what happened in his. Maybe he talked about it to someone else, but not to me. Whenever I brought up the subject, he was either vague or had some quip.

"He was at Da Nang both times. He and others lived in a tent called a 'hooch.' I don't know how many were in the tent – maybe three, maybe more. They had a foxhole outside the tent. I'm assuming each had his own, but maybe they shared. He had two tours, both times at Da Nang in Vietnam. ­During the second tour, his outfit was pulled back to Japan, to Iwakuni. Sorry not to be more help, but that's all I know."

When I asked his daughter, Anna ­Sobolewski, who is my age, her response was, "Any recollection about the war was followed up by a funny story."

My Uncle Jim did not dwell on what was surely a horrific experience. I'm certain it haunted him, but he was careful not to burden those around him with his pain.

After Vietnam

He came home from Vietnam, re­sumed his law practice, raised his children, loved his wife, offered free and wise legal advice to his extended family, volunteered for the Boy Scouts and the Boys and Girls Club, served his church, and flew his various airplanes around, including a red Waco, an antique open-cockpit biplane. But, most of all, he laughed, and made others laugh, until his clear, crystalline blue eyes twinkled.

What warriors do

And this is what warriors do. They go to some unbearable place and do the unbearable job asked of them, and then they come home, and they go about living.

Another warrior

My great-great-grandfather, John Crawford Edwards, was a Confederate quartermaster who was there at Appomattox in April, 1865, when the South surrendered to the North. When he was mustered out of the defeated Confederate army on that day of surrender, he began the long walk home to Smarr, Georgia.

That evening, as he rested by a water­ing hole, he was joined by a Union soldier driving a wagon pulled by a team of horses. The two former enemies engaged in conversation. The Yankee soldier was headed to Ohio. They discussed how important it was to hurry home and get their crops in the ground.

The kindly Yankee divided his team of horses with Grandpa Edwards so that he could get home and get his crop in the ground and feed his family. He had six more children after the war.

And another

My cousin, Adair Dickerson, was a Second Lieutenant with the Third Armored Division in Germany, during the Battle of the Bulge, in World War II. When his superior officer was wounded, Adair rallied his new command, and took the objective, under heavy bombardment. He continued to serve heroically in Belgium, where he was seriously wounded and promoted to Captain. He was awarded four Purple Hearts and the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster.

And his heroism continued after he came home. We were told, quietly, at the reception after his funeral, that he had never taken a paycheck in all the more than 30 years he had taught vocational arts at the high school. After the war, he married his sweetheart, Jane Redwine, whom he refused to marry before the war, because he couldn't bear the possibility of her becoming a young widow. They had a family, and Adair served his church and community in many ways. My husband and I named our son Henry Adair.

Although he endured a long battle with cancer, Uncle Jim was blessed to pass away peacefully at his own home, which he loved, at beautiful St. Simons Island, Georgia. A couple of days after he died, my Aunt Jeanne wrote to my mother, "Jim looked so very young and rested and beautiful, without the lines from his painful, debilitating cancer and other wars, both real and figurative, that he has been through."

That is my wish for all warriors, when, at last, they go home.

Julie Thrasher Stuckey is a poet, mathematician, and homemaker. She lives on the high plains of Colorado, with her husband (a Navy veteran) and twin toddlers.

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