May I offer a book recommendation?
Troubled Hero: A Medal of Honor, Vietnam, and the War at Home by Randy Mills.
It?s the incredibly sad story of a young man named Kenny Kays. He grew up in the same small town that I did, and I knew him slightly. Kenny was 3 years older than me. That?s just enough of an age difference that the Vietnam War was highly significant in Kenny?s life, and not at all significant in mine. My uncle, who was a local judge at the time, is mentioned in the book, as am I, for a very minor role in the saga. Having my name in a ?history? book kind of gave me a jolt and caused me to scan my grey hair and receding hairline.
Kenny graduated from high school in 1967, and majored in ?party? at college, before he flunked out. In the small, very conservative, Southern Illinois town where we grew up, his attendance at the Woodstock music festival was widely reported and criticized amongst the older generation. His application for conscientious objector status was denied, and he was drafted. He fled to Canada, but was convinced by his father to accept a negotiated settlement whereby he would enter the military as a medic. Less than two weeks after arriving in Vietnam, he was assigned to an army company as their medic. Two days later, they came under heavy attack in an overnight battle. Kenny?s actions during and after the firefight saved the lives of several soldiers he barely knew. He lost a leg in the fighting, BEFORE dragging other soldiers to safety, protecting them from further harm with his own body. Kenny returned to his home town possessed by many demons, including drug addiction and the horrors he had experienced. (This was before the term ?Post Traumatic Stress? had been invented, I think.) The folks back home didn?t know how to deal with him, even though many tried. The picture of President Nixon pinning the Congressional Medal of Honor on a ?tuned-out hippie? in 1970 seems so very out of place and out of character for both participants. Kenny stated that the MOH was ?just a piece of metal? and refused to be honored in his home town. He was in trouble with the local law many times thereafter, committed to mental institutions at least a dozen times, and was jailed after multiple arrests for growing pot in his father?s greenhouse. My uncle was the judge that placed him in jail. Every time he got caught, he would start a new crop as soon as he was released. The story of the ?jailed hero? got national attention and created much local embarrassment. In 1991, Kenny committed suicide by hanging himself. His MOH was never found among his possessions.
Even after all these years, I am unable to reconcile the memories of the kid I knew in grade school with this tragic story. I have simply accepted that, on the one day that it counted the most, Kenny Kays was a hero, and I hope that he has found the peace that eluded him in life.
<fieldset class="gc-fieldset">
<legend> Attached files </legend> <a href="http://www.talkirvine.com/converted_files/images/forum_attachments/329_Sh0tcDijYalZteeo7zlB.jpg"><img src="http://www.talkirvine.com/converted_files/images/forum_attachments/329_Sh0tcDijYalZteeo7zlB.jpg" class="gc-images" title="Kays2.jpg" style="max-width:300px" /></a> </fieldset>
