Memories are forever

We never forget.

That may be the greatest comfort, I think, when someone we love dies. It can be the greatest fear as well, but if you believe that love creates a lasting connection, you can reject fear and know that your loved one lives on in the memories and hearts of others, as well as in your own.

Last week I introduced you to John DeBarber, a young Seymour soldier who served in the U.S. Army and lost his life in Vietnam with two weeks left on his tour of duty. Two weeks to wrap up his military career and return to his family and friends. Two weeks to start the life he had put on hold for a few years to serve his country.

I wanted you to meet him, to know even just a little about him, because he was a young man who grew up in my hometown. I had been thinking about him for a few weeks, because I had visited Washington, D.C. recently with my husband, and we made a point to go to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial while we were there.

DeBarber’s was the only name that my husband and I knew to be on the wall, simply because we both grew up in Seymour and knew that his name is painted on the sign at Seymour High School, identifying the football field to anyone who goes there as “John DeBarber Memorial Field.”

That is all I knew about him. He was a name on a sign. I had never met John DeBarber, since I was a toddler when he died. If not for the Vietnam War, many of you wouldn’t know him either. Thanks to the sharing of memories about him by family and friends, you now know enough to put value to a life that touched yours, even when you didn’t know it did.

Since DeBarber’s story appeared in the Sunday Republican-American and in Walking Distance over the Memorial Day weekend, I have heard from many readers about him. Conversations over DeBarber and others who were brought to mind through the stories remind us of the real people they were.

Respecting the right to privacy of those who exchanged email comments on DeBarber, as well as on Ronald Randall and another Valley soldier, Ron Sheehy from Derby, I am sharing anonymous remarks here because they represent such a powerful connection that we all have.

For example, one of my cousins went to Seymour High during the years that DeBarber was there. DeBarber, a handsome, athletic teen with an engaging smile and manner, made an impression on her. “He was quite the jock,” she said, noting that he had been homecoming king with his high school girlfriend then. Popular, fun. That was “Ace” DeBarber, as everyone remembers calling him.

Another Seymourite offered: “I didn’t know Ace well but I remember he was in my drafting class with Miss Lafargo. ...”

Think about that memory. High school drafting. Can you picture the classroom?

Another: “I didn’t know Ace but do remember him as a star football player. I knew Ron Randall, Rodney’s twin and classmate of my brother John...”

DeBarber made an impression on the gridiron, and it still stands out in this person’s mind. Randall also is remembered, because his life was connected to others through his twin brother, and through this reader’s brother. The fabric of our lives is woven with individual threads. We are those threads.

Another: “I knew ‘Ace’ as a kid from the neighborhood ... and I remember how completely devastated my brother David was when Ron Randall was killed -- good friend of his who trained with him ...”

The memories transport us to another time in our life, to locations we revisit in our minds. Football fields, neighborhoods of tidy little homes and yards, the winding line outside of the funeral parlor waiting to pay respects.

“I felt sad when I learned of John DeBarber’s death, sadness not for a friend but for a local hero. I was sad ... when Ron Randall was killed. Some guys never get a break. R.I.P. John, Ron and Ron Sheehy.”

And one more: “War is HELL. ... I saw the Wall in Washington. It was so moving, it just grabs you and tears your heart out. There are over [54,000] names on the wall, young guys who came home in a box. I read the John DeBarber story. It is very sad. It made me cry for him... I knew Rodney Randall, and there was a kid from Derby, Ronnie Sheehy, he was in the Explorers with us ...He got killed the first week he was over there ...”

As a community, the small town of Seymour (back then, what could the population have been, 4,000? 5,000?) and the greater community of the lower Naugatuck Valley grieved respectfully for these soldiers that many never knew. It was a time of confusion, political volatility, and social turbulence, so the sorrow was contained within the divisive political climate that did not welcome front page stories on these local heroes.

Years later, we remember DeBarber, Randall, Sheehy, and all of our hero soldiers with an appreciation for who they were as people. We want to know about them, honor them, remember them. As well we should.

Copyright 2011 By Marianne V. Heffernan