05.18.06

Remembering a man I never knew.

Posted in General, Ponderings at 10:09 am by Adriene

As part of our vacation in DC, Jeff and I paid a visit to the Vietnam Memorial on the National Mall. Part of the reason we went was because we naturally wanted to see it, but also because my uncle’s name is on the wall. Robert A. Brown, from Rose Hill, North Carolina, the eldest of seven children.

I never knew him. I’m not even entirely sure what year he died, other than it was sometime around the time my mom and dad got married (between 1970 and 1972, I guess - Mom and Dad got married in 1971). I know he was roughly a year older than my mom, but he failed a grade in elementary school, so they graduated from high school the same year.

The fall after they graduated, Mom was headed off to business school in Raleigh, and Uncle Robert was headed off to the Army. Mom says that she remembered being a bit irked that my grandmother cried more dropping Uncle Robert off than she did when they dropped Mom off. I guess, though, that irritation faded after my uncle died.

My uncle was on a construction crew with the Army, and he got deployed to Vietnam. I think he was over there for only a few months when the accident that killed him happened. A bulldozer was trying to climb a steep embankment and he was behind it. It fell over backwards and landed on him, crushing him. Somehow, he survived that and was transferred to a military hospital in Japan. I’m guessing that was a blessing, because it gave my grandfather time to fly over to Japan to see him one last time and to bring him home after he died.

He’s still a bit of a mystery to me - my family doesn’t speak of him too often, save for the occasional story of him getting into trouble growing up, and everyone laughs. I wish I had known him - my mom says he always reminded her of a miniature version of my grandfather, and Grandaddy was probably one of my favorite people ever.

So, this past Sunday, I stood at the wall and looked up at my uncle’s name, remembering what I’ve been told of him and wondering what it would have been like to know him. I guess that’s my way of mourning a man I never knew.

Permalink