***Of This And That In The Old 1960s North Adamsville Neighborhood-In Search Of…..Those Who Served  

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

For those who have been following this series about the old days in my old home town of North Adamsville, particularly the high school day as the 50^th anniversary of my graduation creeps up, will notice that recently I have been doing sketches based on my reaction to various e-mails sent by fellow classmates via the class website. So I have taken on the tough tasks of sending kisses to raging grandmothers, talking up old flames with guys I used to hang around the corners with, remembering those long ago searches for the heart of Saturday night, getting wistful about elementary school daydreams, taking up the cudgels for be-bop lost boys and the like. That is no accident as I have of late been avidly perusing the personal profiles of various members of the North Adamsville Class of 1964 website as fellow classmates have come on to the site and lost their shyness about telling their life stories (or have increased their computer technology capacities, not an unimportant consideration for the generation of ’68, a generation on the cusp of the computer revolution and so not necessarily as computer savvy as the average eight-year old today).

Some stuff is interesting to a point, you know, including those endless tales about the doings and not doings of the grandchildren, odd hobbies and other ventures taken up in retirement and so on although not worthy of me making a little off-hand commentary on. Some stuff is either too sensitive or too risqué to publish on a family-friendly site. Some stuff, some stuff about the old days and what did, or did not, happened to, or between, fellow classmates, you know the boy-girl thing (other now acceptable relationships were below the radar then) has naturally perked my interest.

Other stuff defies simple classification as is the case here in dealing with those who served in the military in whatever capacity and especially those who fell in our generation’s war, the Vietnam War, a war that sometimes put classmate against classmate in trying to make sense of the thing. What did not, or rather does not, divide us today is remembrance of those who served and those who fell. It was not the individual soldier that we had a dispute with but with the government and its policies. That difference was sometimes obscured back then.

In an attempt to pay tribute to those who served the class site webmaster, Donna, created a special section and as classmates joined the site, mainly male from that generation but a few females, they were asked about their military service and those who had were placed there with their branch of service. What amazed me, although it should not have, in our old working class town of Adamsville, which along with those who grew up in the inner city ghettos and barrios and the farmland of the Midwest, provided more than its fair share of “cannon fodder” was the high number of male joiners who also served in the military. Part of this number obviously represented young men then subject to the military draft which was then in effect who, fervently or sullenly, went when their number was called but part also represented for our class the notion that one did  not oppose the government whatever one thought of its policies, including its war policies.

Although most classmates who joined gave their military service information naturally in a class of over five hundred graduates not all members are now recognized on the site since many classmates are “missing” (a category for those who have not joined). More troubling was figuring out the number from our class who fell in Vietnam (or perhaps other later wars for any career soldiers) and information about their fate. For what I could gather there were two from our class who fell, Dave Martin and Jim Slater, and who are listed for eternity both down on that tear-stained black marble in Washington and over at the Vietnam Memorial Park near the bay in Adamsville. What was missing was broader information about their service and when they were killed. As an old veteran I volunteered to find out more to add to the special section in the For Those Who Served section for the fallen. I was able to check with certain classmates who knew them and the following is the gist of what I was looking for in my e-mail dispersal.   

  

“Gary-Before Donna, our webmaster, changed the format you had a site listed on your personal profile page for our fallen brothers in Vietnam who are listed on the black marble down in DC and at the Adamsville memorial at Marina Bay. We are looking for more information on David Martin, Jim Slater and I think you listed somebody else who was not on the list at the Marina. Donna has asked me to find out from you-Do you know more/ can you find out more about years of their deaths or any other information. Also are others from NA64 missing from the lists? Also how about disabled or wounded? Donna intends to have a separate section of the site to honor all these veterans. Any help either by personal knowledge or giving sites to get information would be greatly appreciated-Thanks Frank Jackman”

Through Gary and an ex-girlfriend of Dave’s, Melinda Loring, I was able to get the years that they died and the circumstances of their deaths provided by their respective service branches (Marines and Air Force) and that information is now included in their section to go along with those black marble and bay remembrances. Thanks for your service, guys.