The Door

The Door

“Mommy, wake up. There are two men at the front door dressed like daddy. ‘t

At nine years old, I knew the word “uniform.” But early on a Saturday morning, answering an unexpected doorbell ring, still in my pajamas, i just couldn’t remember that word.

One of the men standing at the door in an Army uniform quietly asked if my mother was home. As I went to get my mom, an ominous feeling began to grow in the pit of my stomach. In the year that my dad had been in Korea, no men in uniform had ever come to our door. And, although he had been in Vietnam for almost a year, he was due home in three days. We were already packing up the house to move to Ft Rucker because daddy was coming home!

There weren’t supposed to be men in uniform standing at our door. My daddy was supposed to be standing there.

Mom sent me to my room and told me to wait till she called for me. She got dressed and met with the two men in our living room. A little while later, she called for me to come into the living room. Confirming my darkest fears, she explained that something bad had happened. There has been a helicopter crash in Vietnam. Daddy, and several other soldiers, had been killed in the crash. The two men in uniform were “truly sorry for our loss.”

Over the next few hours, my nine-year-old mind figured out that daddy was coming home – just not the way we were expecting. He wouldn’t be standing at the door in uniform. He would be in a big box covered with an American flag. On the nightly news reports with Walter Cronkite, I had seen the images of flag-draped coffins coming off military airplanes. I had seen the “body count” graphic in the upper righthand corner of our TV screen. That night, when I watched the news, I knew that the number on the screen now included my daddy. It wasn’t news any more. It was personal. It wasn’t just another number. It was my daddy,

The next few days were a blur. But I do remember that some ladies took me shopping for a dark-colored dress – something for a funeral. They couldn’t find a dress in my size. (l remember thinking “Nine-year olds weren’t supposed to have correctly-sized dresses, appropriate for a funeral.” ) In the juniors department at Sears they finally found a pretty, dark brown dress embellished with white, satin ribbons and a small white rose; but it was way too big for me. A chubby little lady, with pins in her mouth, had come into the dressing room to measure my new dress for alterations. I remember thinking that daddy would have been proud of me in my ‘big girl” dress… appropriate for a funeral.

The house was filled with people every day. They came in quiet waves. Sympathetic women would pull me into their laps to console me over the loss of my daddy. It seemed to my nine-year-old heart that the grownups were the ones would needed to be consoled. I quickly learned that the only way out of that lap was to shed some tears to the lap owner would feel she had helped me. I knew these caring people were trying to help my family get through a terrible tragedy. But there were just too many of them. Sometimes it felt like they were sucking all the air out of the room nad I just had to escape for a little while to the peace and quiet of my bedroom.

I don’t remember the actual funeral service, in 1966, at Southside Baptist Church, on Pye Avenue, in Columbus, Georgia. But I do remember the graveside service at the Fort Benning cemetery. The sky was clear. The temperature was soaring. South Georgia humidity hung heavy in the July air. My mom sat ramrod straight in her chair – the picture of dignity. She was gracious to everyone. She thanked the soldier who presented her with the militarily-folded flag that moments before had been protecting my daddy. The rifle fire from the 21 -gun salute came suddenly like a brazen thief…stealing the silent peace of the cemetery. I jumped in my seat. For a split second, I wondered if we should all hit the deck – like I had seen people do in the Vietnam footage that played in our living room each night on the news. But no one around me seemed alarmed. So I guessed it was safe. Somewhere in the distance a melancholy bugler blew Taps. To this day, every time I hear Taps, I am instantly back in that folding chair in the Fort Benning cemetery, in the hot Georgia sun.

The wave of visitors eventually slowed to a trickle and (mercifully) a halt as people got back to the business of living their lives. Case Waters and another lady (l am shamed to admit that I can’t remember her name) took my little brother, Joe, and me to Florida a few days later. When we got back, the house was unpacked and we settled in for life without daddy.

At first, “life without daddy” didn’t seem so different. HE had been in Vietnam for almost a year. Before Vietnam, he had been in Korea for a year. His time between Korea and Vietnam was filled with training maneuvers which kept him in the field for weeks at a time. It was aors if we had actually lost him two ro three years earlier… when my little brother and I were much younger, instead of the seven and nine years we were at his death. The biggest difference was that my mom had to find a job. The small payout she got from Serviceman’s Group Life Insurance didn’t begin to pay the mortgage on our modest home in south Columbus, much less the monthly expenses of a war widow with two children.

One afternoon in 1974, I had come home from high school to an empty house. Mom was at work and Joe was off with friends somewhere. Bored, I looked around the house for something to occupy my afternoon till it was time to cook supper. I don’t remember how I found it; but I stumbled across a six-ring binder of keepsakes of my dad’s. Sometime after the funeral my mother collected things photographs, certificates, orders… and letters. In plastic document protectors, she carefully preserved every condolence letter our family received – from General Westmoreland to Captain Richie to some soldier we only knew as Geno. She answered each one too. I found copies of her responses tucked behind each letter.

For the next few hours, I read about my dad… college degree… military training school certificates… promotion orders… military decoration citations… and of course, the letters. There were the standard condolence letters sent from various Army officers to the families of military members killed in action. But there were also handwritten letters from heartbroken soldiers who had served with my dad. There were newspaper articles, too. My dad’s face looked back at me from yellowed clippings carefully cut out and placed in plastic protectors. Some stories told of his exploits whit his men and of their mission in Vietnam; others recounted the helicopter crash that took his life, They finally ended with the obituary.

Eight years after answering the door in my pajamas… eight years later, sitting alone, at our kitchen table… the tears finally came. And this time they were mine. I wept for my dad. I wept for my family. I wept for his troopers. I wept for my country. I wept for every. “war-orphan” that Vietnam had created.

That afternoon the Lord began the healing process. As I really owned my grief (for the first time), I felt Him begin to put together the pieces of my broken heart. Since then, the healing process has been slow but steady. Over the years, I found evidence of my father’s faith in Jesus Christ. It makes the hope of the resurrection even sweeter – to know that one day I’ll see my dad again. And when that day comes, there will be no more war. There will be no more helicopter crashes. There will be no more men in uniform standing at my door. There will be an eternity of celebrating Jesus with my dad at my side. Thanks be to God Who makes all things new.

Teri Nave

Daughter of Major Billy Joe Nave

KIA – June 27, 1966, Republic of Vietnam

Written, October 1 I J 2010