Echoes of war reverberate in the heart
Family, loved ones of those lost create connections across decades and distance
“I always meant to ask you about the war
”And what you saw across a bridge too far
”Did it leave a scar?”
—”Bang the Drum Slowly,” Emmlyou Harris, written in memory of her father, Maj. Walter Rutland “Bucky” Harris, USMC WWII, Korean War POW
Sometimes the scars of war hit closer to home than you think.
I have known that for years. I learned that as a kid and I’m reminded of it today.
I was nine years old when one of my big brothers lost a friend in Vietnam. It was in November 1966, while my brother was serving on a destroyer in the Navy. He visited his friends’ folks when he was home on leave. It was at Christmastime. They did not put up decorations.
My brother would lose several more friends. And we would lose a cousin, many years after the war ended, to the emotional wounds that war left on him.
That one has come back to touch my life in a very special and poignant way.
Ronald E. "Ronnie" McCool was our third cousin. He was 10 years older than me. Our grandmothers were sisters. I remember, as a little kid, our family visiting Ronnie's grandma, my Great Aunt Em, on Sunday afternoons.
That was in the late 1960s. By that time, Ronnie was in Vietnam.
He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps right out of Waterloo Columbus High School. He served four years in the Marines and 15 months in country.
His life after the military initially showed promise. He was a student in the tool and die department of Hawkeye Institute of Technology, now Hawkeye Community College, and was elected student body president in 1971. Eventually he landed a job at John Deere.
But Ronnie's fortunes slid down a long slippery slope. He died in September 1991 in Prairie du Chien, Wis., where he'd moved years earlier. It was a suicide, brought on by post-traumatic stress disorder from his Vietnam service, according to his doctor. Ronnie was 44.
Two weeks later, at the annual Vietnam weekend vigil at the Black Hawk County Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Paramount Park in downtown Waterloo, a bench bearing his name was dedicated, donated by his family, and a tree was planted in his memory.
Friends of Ronnie said he would leave a red rose on the local Vietnam memorial, dedicated in 1986, to let friends know he'd been in town.
Mentally, friends said, Ronnie never came home from Vietnam, having lost many friends there. But he was always reaching out to other veterans and their families.
In the early 1980s, Ronnie visited "The Wall" - the National Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. - riding his motorcycle there from Iowa. He left there a photo of the grave of one of his comrades, Marine Lance Cpl. Philip Alan Purvis of Denver, Colo., killed in action on Quang Ngai province Nov. 25, 1966. Ronnie wrote his own name and Waterloo address and phone number on the back, asking anyone who knew Purvis to contact him. The photo and note is preserved in the National Park Service's collection of items left at The Wall.
Ronnie's brother, Jim of Waterloo, a Vietnam veteran himself, had a letter Crawford County, Wis., veterans service officer James W. Hannah wrote Jim's and Ronnie's parents after Ronnie's death, praising him for his work with veterans in Prairie du Chien. He donated POW-MIA flags to veterans posts and the tourism center. He had a cabin there, offering it to veterans and their families to use for recreation and relaxation. Ronnie was going to bequeath the cabin to a local veterans organization in the event of his death - but killed himself two days before completing the paperwork with his attorney.
Several years after Ronnie’s passing, Paramount Park was renovated concurrent with the construction of a new office building on the site. The Vietnam memorial remained but the surroundings changed. A tree was planted in Ron’s memory a good 20-30 yards removed from the county memorial. By the tree is a little memorial plaque to Ron, flush to the ground. You don’t see unless you’re right on top of it. I had trouble finding it.
A couple of weeks ago, local Vietnam veterans and others held an annual weekend vigil at the county Vietnam memorial — 45 hours, an hour for each county resident killed or missing in the war. Ronnie’s tree and marker was off in the distance, almost isolated from the vigil site, unnoticed. I just thought on that weekend of all weekends, Ronnie should have some decoration on his marker. So I put one there. And I thought my Navy big brother, now deceased, would have wanted our cousin remembered, as well as my brothers’ fallen friends and classmates.
I wrote a column in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier about Ronnie on Memorial Day weekend 2016, to draw awareness to veterans’ mental health. I’d heard from our National Guard soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan they had lost several friends to suicide.
Six years after I wrote that Courier column, just last year, in June 2022, I received an email I did not expect:
”This email will seem like it’s coming from way out in left field,” the note said. “And perhaps it is.
”Please know I’m not some deranged citizen. Rather, I am a 72 year old retired Department of Defense budget analyst living in Castle Rock, Colorado. I grew up in Denver and was engaged to LCPL Philip Alan Purvis USMC who was killed in Vietnam on Nov 25, 1966.
”To make a long story short, as I was googling information today regarding my long deceased fiancé, I happened upon an article you wrote for the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier in May 2016 about your 3rd cousin Ronald McCool. In this article, you mentioned that Ronnie had ridden his motorcycle to the Vietnam Memorial Wall and left a picture of Phil’s grave there.
”As you might imagine, I was very moved by this very caring gesture by your cousin for his comrade. I visited The Wall in 1979 before Ronnie made his trip there. Had I known of this picture being left there with your cousin’s contact info, I would most certainly have contacted him. Phil was an incredible young man and even as a wife, mother, grandmother and great grandmother all these decades later, I still love him and miss him very much."
I likewise was deeply moved by her note. We have talked and corresponded since.
When I noted in a Facebook post I had decorated Ron’s marker at Paramound Park a few weeks ago, she said or Ron, “God bless him. He has a special place in my heart. And a special place in Heaven.”
How I wish Ron had lived long enough to make a connection with her. What she wrote still chokes me up and fills my chest with pride.
Ron’s marker is, to me, where it was meant to be. To me, it’s a metaphor, a reminder, and a lesson, that those who suffer from the lingering internal scars of war should not be set aside and put “out of sight, out of mind.” As with others suffering depression and other emotional ills, they need sunlight, not stigma.
In a speech near the end of World War II. Gen. George S. Patton Jr. noted there was a saying that the only heroes in war are the ones who didn’t come back.
”Well dammit, we’ve got some live ones too!” Patton said.
And we need to support them.
If you know or love a veteran or their family, let them know they are appreciated and hang onto them with all your might.
The national "AMVETS 22 Everyday" Crisis Line number is (800) 273-8255, extension 1. Or there’s the Veterans Crisis Line — dial 988 and press 1. Or text 838255 to chat online. Callers do not have to be enrolled with the Veterans Administration or other healthcare providers. There also are many local veterans organizations to help.
We are responsible for those we send to war, even after the guns are silent. We must be unrelenting in that war of compassion.
Proud of you, Ronnie. Semper Fi, cuz. And God Bless America.
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. They are listed below. Clink on the links to check them out, subscribe for free - and, if you believe in the value of quality journalism, support this column and/or any of theirs with a paid subscription .
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This gave me all the feels. Nice job, friend.
Great post.