The Professor Ch. 15

We stayed in bed off and on for the next two days making love and being lazy. We were both so excited that our wedding day was just over the horizon or so we thought. Too quickly the time came for us to pack our bags to head to Ft. Benning. We spent a long time saying goodbye and eventually with the car packed we drove straight through to Columbus Georgia stopping for gas, food, restroom breaks and to changes drivers. We reported in to our commander for IOBC (Infantry Officer Basic Course) Class 67-8 at The School Brigade, 1st Student Battalion. We lived in the Bachelor Officer's Quarters (BOQ) and had the pleasure of sleeping in until 0600, eating in the officer's mess and driving to our unit for training. I warned the guys we needed to be running and staying in shape – fortunately some other guys there who'd received direct commissions and had been through Ranger Training confirmed my urging. So we devoted our off hours to staying in top shape while our classmates didn't work as hard. We had plenty of time to call home and talk with our sweeties, preparing them for the inevitable of Ranger School where we would have little contact with our families.

We finished IOBC and went right to Ranger Training and it started with Ranger Indoctrination and Preparation (RIP) School meant to weed out the class to a manageable size from 180 to around 90. Over the next seven weeks of days and seven weeks of nights we would run ten miles every morning, live on little food, water and sleep. Run with sixty pound ruck sacks, carry our Ranger Buddy if he stopped or be carried if we stopped. It was brutal and most of us lost all of the fat on our bodies. We were exhausted - looking like survivors of Dachau. The words of the Ranger Creed were burned into our brains especially the last line, "Readily will I display the intestinal fortitude required to fight on to the Ranger objective and complete the mission though I be the lone survivor. Rangers lead the way!" It was chilling to realize that we may find ourselves in that circumstance. Vietnam was raging now and we were going there – no question. We got our Ranger Tabs and went to the Officer's Club to have a steak – Richard Carls, Wesley Reissen, Mike Jacobs (Wesley's Ranger Buddy) and me. It was a somber celebration if not modest. None of us had the stomach for a wild party we just wanted to get our orders and go home. Richard and I got orders for Vietnam. Mike and Wesley were going to Vietnamese Language School and then to Ft. Bragg for Special Forces Training. Richard, Wesley and I drove back home for our leaves and for me a wedding.

I was home a week with Lissia and Mom when I got a devastating telephone call – my leave had been cancelled and was ordered to report to Travis Air Force Base immediately. The war had taken a desperate turn and more officers in our skills sets were needed – huge enemy build ups cut a lot of leaves short. Lissia and I had little time to get married so we postponed the wedding. It was heartbreaking. Mom and Lissia were terrified and I was angry – after all that we'd been through and now this. But I would do what I was ordered to do. Our goodbye was so hard – neither of us knew if we'd see each other ever again. We just didn't know how real that would be.

We were at Travis two days before we were put on a civilian aircraft headed for Bien Hoa, South Vietnam. We stopped on Oahu and later on Wake Island to refuel. When we landed in Bien Hoa we were hustled through the lines of guys with their thousand yard stares laughing at the 'cherries' – us. I wouldn't see Richard for a very long time he was sent right away to Cu Chi with the Wolfhounds to fight the tunnel wars and I was sent to Phu Bai to the 101st Airborne, 1st Brigade, to join a Long Range Reconnaissance Company (LRRP). We'd had Thanksgiving at home but Christmas would be spent here. I filled out all my paperwork naming Lissia as beneficiary for my SGLI and Soldier's Overseas Deposit savings account. I made it to the company area and immediately got pulled into a platoon assignment as a rifle platoon leader of a LRRP platoon that was filled with two and three tour airborne Rangers who didn't need a brand new 2nd Lieutenant to deal with. They'd lost the three previous ones KIA (killed in action). They stayed away from me as I got to know Juan Gomez the 25 year old platoon sergeant, sergeant first class – a real warrior. He would teach me how to be a good officer and Ranger. We ran a lot of patrols, had a lot of fights with larger and larger unit. We called in a lot of heavy airstrikes. We were seeing new rifles, gear and uniforms on the dead NVA (North Vietnamese Army soldiers). There was a huge offensive coming from all of our snooping and following replacement columns listening to their communications - it was on the way and we couldn't stop it with our company it would take four months to turn this offensive around when it happened. We warned division and no one seemed to be listening except the Marines at Khe Sanh. On January 30, 1968 all of South Vietnam exploded in battle – the New Year or Tet was supposed to be a cease fire – no such luck. We operated out of Camp Evans and ran patrols daily standing down occasionally to resupply and rearm. By March we had broken the back of the NVA offensive but Walter Cronkite declared the U.S. had just lost the war and the political tide turned against our involvement and the U.S. soldier – we were now murderers and baby killers.

Then on April 4, 1968 a real horror occurred Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. I immediately called Lissia via MARS (Military Amateur Radio Station). She was terrified. Her life had been threatened because of our engagement. I told her to lock up her home and head to the country. I was scared for her life. I knew the pain of war losing 12 men wounded or killed in action – i didn't want to find out that Lissia had been injured or worse killed because of the riots that we both knew were coming. Dr. King's assassin was white. The country exploded, Vietnam was an armed camp with black and white soldiers menacing one another. I was made the race relations officer for the brigade since my fiancé was black as though black soldiers I didn't know would trust a white officer. On April 19th the situation worsened – my platoon got into a fierce fight with withdrawing NVA. I was hit badly in the chest, abdomen and thigh. I woke up three days later on the USHS Repose. What I didn't know was that a Stephen Edwards was killed the same day in I Corps that I was badly wounded. The notifications got crossed up – Mom and eventually Lissia were told that I had been killed.

I was in the hospital at Camp Zama Japan when I found out that Mom had suffered a stroke shortly after the Army visited her and told her I was killed. She never regained consciousness. My brothers, both of whom were in the military went home for her funeral – I couldn't be moved. I didn't know where Lissia was and couldn't get in touch with her. Phone call after phone call with no answers. I had no contact from my brothers even though they found out I was alive. I was utterly alone now. Lissia had gone to Maine to stay for a while – but I didn't know it. Evie was up there teaching at a small college. Our long winter of despair had begun. After two months at Camp Zama I went home for convalescence leave but I had nowhere to go. Mom's house was locked up tight. I had keys so I opened the house and got my car out of the garage and headed to Galveston. I stayed at the Flagship Hotel for two weeks. When I got back to Mom's house I went to my safe deposit box and opened it. Inside was Lissia's engagement ring, my savings book and our personal effects that had value. I closed it out. Packed the car and headed to Ft. Polk in Shreveport where I would take command of an AIT (advanced individual training) company of infantry destined soldiers. My down time was spent trying to find Lissia. What I didn't know was that she had decided after a year to go to Vienna Austria to obtain a PhD in psychology and counseling.

I returned to Vietnam in 1969 as a battalion executive officer with the 101st. After that tour I returned to the states to go back to school for a PhD in statistical methods and forecasting at Virginia University in Blacksburg Virginia. While there I worked with the ROTC unit and its corps of cadets. After I finished my PhD I taught three years at West Point and then went to the Pentagon to work in planning and operations – my wounds were severe enough to keep me out of a line unit again. I would spend thirty two years in the Army retiring as an O-6 or full colonel. I never married – I had given up on ever finding Lissia – I wasn't interested in anyone else. The internet came along and in 1998 I searched her name and found her in Maine. I didn't know what to do with that information so for two years I was in a deep sadness at all the lost years and finally my dog and I drove to Maine to fish. I found her office where she was serving as a psychologist and called her from my hotel room in Bar Harbor. We began all over again and it took twelve years before we spent any amount of time together. We pieced our story together and it was stunning when we looked at all that had happened. Lissia will finish our story for you - it still pains my heart to share this.

THE CONCLUSION – LISSIA

When the war got worse it ripped Steven and me apart. Our wedding got postponed in the midst of great joy about our finally being permitted to marry in Texas. The hurt in Steven's heart was so great that it cut through me like an axe. I got real scared for him going into battle. I knew Steven, I knew he'd be in the fight so fast – I was afraid he'd be worrying about me all the time – it was a struggle when we were together that he was so protective of me I was scared now for his safety that he'd be thinking about me and get himself killed. That war did get ugly in 1968 and right at the end of the enemy attacks Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot to death by a white guy in Memphis Tennessee. About three in the morning on April 6th I got a strange telephone calls from an amateur radio guy who said he had a collect call from a Captain Edwards would I accept it. Of course I would – Steven was calling from Vietnam worried about me. It was hard to talk between my crying and his anxiety plus having to say 'over' every time I finished saying something. He had a right to be worried for my safety. A lot of folk knew we were engaged – he told me in no uncertain terms to 'go home' to the farm. Lock up my house tight – don't wear my engagement ring – hide pictures of us – lie to my family if I had to – to let them know we had 'broken up' – I didn't argue with a guy used to jungle fighting – I did it. Later our home got vandalized, shot full of holes by angry folk. Momma and Daddy let me stay and truly believed that we had broken up – we hadn't but Steven couldn't take a chance. I put the engagement ring in Steven's safe deposit box along with his personal records and valuable documents and items. At one point Daddy wanted to kill Steven – he and my brothers and uncles and cousins were laying for him – even two cousins in Vietnam who swore to find him and kill him. Then a strange thing happened, I got word from Dr. Hunter that Steven had been killed. Since Steven had changed the casualty notifications to protect me I knew nothing about his condition. He wasn't dead though I didn't know it. He had been gravely wounded and was in the hospital somewhere. I called his Momma immediately. A neighbor answered the phone and told me that Steven was dead and his Momma had suffered a stroke and was in a coma. She never came out of the coma. My world was shattered into tiny pieces. I fell into a deep depression and hurt. After a few months I went on leave from the Private university, called Evie in Maine and left Texas to stay with her and heal.

I would eventually go to Austria and study psychology earning a PhD in industrial psychology and counseling, spending ten more years in Europe honing my skills. I eventually heard from Evie that there had been a mistake that Steven had not been killed. I can't tell you how bad my heart hurt. I buried myself in my work and had no social life. It turns out that Steven and I reacted in the very same ways – work became our solace. I wrote letters to him every day that never got mailed – he did the same thing to me. His poor heart was so broken – the death of his Mom, the estrangement by his brothers that has lingered, my familial estrangement and brokenness. We ran in parallel tracks – we were so much akin to one another.

I eventually moved to Maine and opened an industrial psychology practice which involved shipbuilders and rail workers. I took long walks on the beaches of Maine and spent time reading and writing until one day I got a telephone call that turned my sorrow into a bittersweet joy - Steven found me – he was in Bar Harbor to 'fish' but the truth is, as he told me, that he had come to find me after thirty years of searching. The seventeen years I spent in Europe really put a lot of road blocks up for Steven's searches for me. But we started over. We visited for two days in Bar Harbor – that time was spent talking and crying. Our hearts were so wounded it took a long time to heal – we were both so scared and Steven had so much guilt to deal with. He suffered from survivor's guilt, a subset of post traumatic stress disorder; guilt over not being able to keep me safe; and a terrible sense of guilt over the death of his beloved mother.

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Epilogue

Many of you have read our story faithfully and we thank you for being patient. We got married on July 12, 2012. It took years to heal but I have my Steven for however long this shall be. We'll answer your questions about us – but we won't write anymore to this story. We're finally together. We know that these stories are generally focused on 'raw sex' well we've been there too but inside of our physical relationship is the soul of our being – our deep and abiding love for one another. We share so much together – our love of each other; education and continuous learning; our love of the outdoors and being healthy; our political and economic views and our faith. Thank you for being interested in us. Drop us an email – we'd love to hear from you.