Posted by carrie sheridan on September 12, 2004:

Just last May, looking for a high school classmate from Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, who is USMA class of '74... I stumbled on this site for "The Fallen". In an instant, I remembered - as I have many, many times in 34 years... Guy Hester.. Since Guy died, every time anything about VietNam comes up - in my life, on TV, reading a book - I think of Guy. Guy is, and always has been, who I think of when I think of Viet Nam. And it's impossible to remember Guy without remembering Elsie --- and remembering Guy And Elsie. Those Kids... and the spring of 1970. I hardly knew them - we hung out together at battalion get-togethers of young officers and their wives/girlfriends at Fort Riley, KS... and most of those "guys" were heading for VietNam in a matter of months.. At the time, the times felt fraught - by comparison, 34 years later, Then looks easier and Now looks bleak. The music and movies may not have been Doo Wop or BeBop anymore - it was more like a For What It's Worth/Born To Be Wild, Easy Rider/Five Easy Pieces/M*A*S*H* world - but there was also Give Peace A Chance and all the hits of the Fifth Dimension and The Mamas and The Papas and Tommy James and the Shondells...and the fun-nest, dumb-est clothes... and Petula Clark... And Guy was so West Point, so Southern, gentlemanly... a really Good Guy. And Elsie: lovely, so Southern, pretty, nice. And those kids were So Happy to be together - after all the years of waiting while he went through the Academy; now on the brink of life, with their whole lives ahead of them. I don't think either David Gaebler or I were with them on more than a handful of occasions - David knew Guy better through the battalion... and it is not that either of us expected to keep up with the Hesters through life - it's just that they were the kind of (rare - I knew it then, but I Really Know It now) great people that every once in a while, you just want to be able to think of as being in the world somewhere, raising a passel of kids, just being their wonderful selves. I wanted a World where Guy, and Elsie - and Guy And Elsie - were in it... even if we weren't in each other's Lives... David's letter to tell me that Guy had been killed was the first stunning event of my young adulthood... it changed me. As these things go, I couldn't believe it. But Of Course I believed it. Finding the words for Elsie - well, it's still the hardest letter I've ever written; her letter back to me is still the hardest letter I've ever read. Achingly hard. It was a blow that had me reeling about everything. I knew Bad Things Happen... until then I didn't know they could happen to people like Guy... and Elsie. That she made it through - with Guy's parents - together - to a great measure of that "peace that passes all understanding" is a comfort and a lesson to me. That Elsie remarried happily and then had a son, named for his Dad, born in Guy's birth month... is even better. For Elsie at 50-ish to sound exactly like the lively, personable, caring, dear person I knew when I was 17-ish and she was 19-ish and we were keeping company with some of the very finest young men (and, to be honest, a few hooligans)... is a joy. Like Guy, Elsie was someone you only wanted The Best for... for her to be working on a college campus - as a resource for kids who are now... the age that We Were then... it reassures me that God does have a plan for each and all of us and encourages me to reach for Faith. We were, all of us, just old enough, and just young enough, for something happening to someone like Guy to have had such an impact, a Lasting Impact. When you're young, you think that you know who seems to be a cut above - but you aren't sure - maybe there are gobs of Great People at the Top - wherever The Top is - in the White House, the Supreme Court, the philanthropies or the best musicians or writers or actors or doctors... in New York or Washington or LA or Paris... people who will make the Great People of your youth look like you didn't know what great was... then... but, I've learned it''s not so. Guy and Elsie, still, all these years later... were two of the best people , and way better than most of the Usual Suspects rich and famous folks I met along the way... So that... every time Viet Nam comes up, good or bad, good and bad. But also every time I think of Young True Love, or wonder Who Did I Know as a husband and wife where they were really a couple. A Great Couple... When I'm thinking of the Best of Times and the Worst of Times I've been a witness to... I think of Guy. And I think of Elsie. And I think of Guy and Elsie... in the spring of 1970. To know that Jim and Jimmy Ervin were "family" to Guy's parents is wonderful and feels like the grace of God and that "all things - really - do work together for Good for those..." but... and... we remember Guy - even those of us who knew him slightly...a long, long time ago. David - trying to find the words to explain why something So Brief, someone So Long Ago, was such a big deal, to his wife Reta - said it just right with: "Guy was The Best of Us". So was Elsie. And the two of them together, have been and are "Unforgettable". Memorable. People who were so happy... who you were happy to know... All these many years - a Lifetime - later... So here's to Guy: you were That Special. Then... and Still... it was good to meet you then and it's good to remember you still. And to Elsie, we hold you, and yours, in our hearts... Now and Always.

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