Look within

I spent most of last week in West Palm Beach, Florida, on assignment for my job. Usually, when I travel on business, I am inspired by the sights, the people, occasionally the culture (particularly if I someplace interesting or different... like Paris, or New York).

I’m not sure if it was the fact that I was busy, or burnt out, or that I was not finding the location to be outstanding in a way that generated a creative response, but I came back with, well, nothing much.

No offense to WPB of course. I’ve been there plenty of times, so perhaps it is simply that is was not a novelty this trip.

I did have a thought though, on my drive home from the airport. Something I want to work on, I guess you could say.

As a person who is always on the “self improvement” kick, I will occasionally read an inspirational book, or watch a spiritual program on television. I got to thinking. All those ideas are fine and can be helpful, but I have a feeling all we need to know, to be “better” individuals, is within us.

Think about it. With a little time to reflect, each of us can identify a quality in ourselves that is good -- which we can amplify through our actions -- or not-so-good -- which we can choose to work on. We don’t really need someone to tell us how to be a good person, or how to be happy in life. The secret lies within. We just need to go there once in a while to conjure it up and embrace it.

Either that, or I need a vacation.

Copyright 2011 By Marianne V. Heffernan

Adapt and overcome

"Nowhere to run."

I wasn’t planning to get into my own “stuff” so much as tee up this Walking distance entry to entice my readers into their own reflections, when I tweeted that earlier this week. So when I posted this note that hinted at my personal sadness on my Facebook page, I was a little uncomfortable (as I usually am) and certainly surprised that it elicited a few responses.

What did I say?

When a dreaded anniversary approaches, there is nowhere to run. Coming up in Walking distance later this week: When a memory hurts.

I was having a bad moment. Not even a bad day, but a bad moment when the underlying sadness in my life history bubbles to the surface. It happens now and then, and I am not alone in knowing what this feels like.

My blog “promo,” I thought, was harmless, but from the responses I received, I felt a connection to people that words cannot explain.

The responses were practically immediate. They were expressions of compassion, kindness, friendship, encouragement. This one was particularly pointed: “Remember the happiness that you had, not the sadness that happened. Easier said than done.”

That post, like the others that followed it, carried so much real feeling, I had to rethink what I wanted to tell you this week. For that, I am grateful. I want to keep things in perspective. It’s about treasuring our good memories. It’s about moving on from them and living life the best we can, to the fullest we can.

So let me share with you the idea that I was aiming at, when I opened up my heart in a tweet.

July 23, 2007.
Does the date mean anything to you?

How about Sept. 11, 2001?

That gives it away, doesn’t it? They are days from calendars past when life changed irrevocably for certain people. Dealing with the anniversary of the death of someone we love is one of the painful residual effects of loss. And it is inescapable.

On July 23, 2007, Dr. William Petit of Cheshire, Conn., lost his wife and two daughters in a horrific home invasion that destroyed not only his family, their home and everything in it, but the life the Petits had created and the dreams they were building.

As the fourth anniversary of the Petit murders approaches, Dr. Petit will relive that terrible day and the events leading up to it. He will not do this intentionally, if he does. This is the kind of experience that shakes a person’s world, unsummoned. The sadness comes on its own and it cannot be avoided.

We can relate to this feeling, but cannot understand it in the way that the families feel it. That should not prevent us from being empathetic and showing respect and kindness. It is the best we can offer.

Sept. 11, 2001 is one of those days that brings that out for so many of us. The familiar date was drilled into the American psyche when we watched jet planes crash into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a remote field in Pennsylvania. We think of it as “9/11,” but for the families of the thousands killed that day, it is the anniversary of their loved ones’ deaths.

I agree that a death anniversary gives us an opportunity to remember the good, once we get past the unavoidable pain. Memories can hurt, but they also heal. As one friend suggested, it can help to honor the loss responsibly. As another friend said, it is our experiences that make us who we are. As long as we can stand up and be strong, good, giving people, we are honoring our loved ones.

In the coming weeks, I’ll take a look at how Dr. Petit, and one of my friends who lost a brother on 9/11 are living examples of those great comments from my Facebook friends. Be sure to follow Walking distance, because their stories are worth knowing.

When I started to write this entry, I had to look up the saying, “adapt and overcome” because I initially thought the saying was, “adapt and survive.”

Maybe that’s just my version of it. But I can edit it one better. How about, “Adapt and live fully”?


Copyright 2011 By Marianne V. Heffernan

Leaving Paris, Part II: Horst

My flight had been an hour late arriving at JFK. After surveying the area outside of the Customs checkpoint and not seeing anyone holding a sign that read “HEFFERNAN,” I dialed up the dispatcher at the car service to inquire whether my driver had abandoned me.

I was coming off a week where I had averaged four hours of sleep a night, and was looking forward to getting home to my husband, our high-maintenance but loveable dog, and the prospect of sleeping in my own lumpy bed. A screwup in my transportation arrangements would likely mean renting a car to drive myself home in the Friday night New York rush-hour traffic.

Before the dispatcher got back on the line to advise me that the driver was indeed there somewhere, I saw a tall, white-haired older gentleman barely hanging on to a paper sign with my name on it, clutching a bulky bag with the familiar pink and orange logo of Dunkin Donuts.

“I got us some water,” he said, not bothering to introduce himself. “I ended up drinking what was in the car because the wait was long, and I wanted to make sure you had something for the ride home.” He grabbed my rolling travel bags and pointed me toward the exit.

This is the way that Horst and I met. I must admit, any annoyance that had begun to take root instantly disintegrated.

How can you be vexed with a driver for not being right there when you step out of Customs, when the reason he was briefly MIA is that he had run off to get you an ice cold bottle of water after your nine-hour trip?

His casual and friendly manner struck me; I knew this would not be a quiet drive home.

Before we reached the car, Horst had begun telling me how he was crowned the unofficial leader in the “Fastest Ride to JFK” standings, having recently dropped off a group of young men who apparently kept close account of the time it takes from their home in Woodbury.

“I didn’t know I was in the running,” Horst joked, making sure to advise me that he had not been speeding.

We started off with the typical pleasantries: the traffic we were sure to encounter on this Friday evening in June; the rainy weather in the region that apparently mimicked the wet weather I had endured in Paris.

Before long, I was getting a history lesson on international relations. It was better than a high school Global Studies class.

Knowing that I had flown in from Paris, Horst offered his insights that immediately drew me into his life story.


“I lived in Paris for two years,” he said. That was back in September 1972. “I met my future ex-wife on my first day there.”

I laughed. Another driver with an ex-wife story. The irony made me smile. Only this time, the driver did not dwell on his personal life but instead, spun a tale of world travel and life learning that I wasn’t expecting.

“France is amazing, Paris in particular,” he continued.

He suggested that there is much in our American culture through which we might connect with the French. Their gift of the Statue of Liberty is one example of their overture of friendship to our country after the American Revolution.

Horst mentioned a new book by David McCullough that offers an interesting take on how the migration of hundreds of Americans to Paris in the 1800s shaped some of our American art, literature, science, and politics when they returned to the United States. (The book is called, The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris.)

Born at the end of 1948, Horst grew up in Gifhorn, Germany, (“the good side” of the country, he notes) not far from Wolfsburg, where the first Volkswagen factory was built during the Third Reich. “You take 10,000 people, give them shovels, and you can build anything,” he offered. He had heard the familiar tales about America as the land of opportunity, so of course, his curiosity was piqued.

“Everything American was heaven... Elvis Presley, the movies, everything American was ‘it,’” Horst said, picking up his chirping iPhone to check an email.

“I had always heard that in America there is unlimited opportunity. I had to come over here and see it for myself.”

While he spoke, his iPhone rang. He picked it up and had a quick conversation in Spanish. Then he hung up and resumed our chat without missing a beat.

Horst was given a scholarship to the Cornell School of Hotel Adminstration, which meant all expenses including his student visa were covered, with the condition that he return to Europe when he graduated. “I reneged on that. But they didn’t force me,” he said, making no apologies.

He followed his dream of hotel management studies, then decided to become a chef. He finished that training in two years, a year ahead of schedule. But his heart was in hotel management, which required that he learn more languages. Today, he speaks four: English, German, Spanish, and French, perhaps due to his natural ability to do whatever it takes. Horst says the Germans are “very adaptable,” much different from the French, who he says have a strong sense of individuality.

Maybe this is a partial explanation of Napoleon’s aggressive nature in trying to conquer everything he coveted.

“War is the father and mother of all things,” said Horst, moving on to French history again. I reached for my Blackberry to start capturing his quotable quotes. “Napoleon invaded everything under the sun, even Egypt. He was crazy. A complete whack job.”

I wondered aloud whether the French interpret their history in the same way that we Americans view it. This was the second time inside of 10 hours that I had heard someone refer to Napoleon as “crazy,” and it reminded me of a discussion from one of my doctoral class meetings where we examined the idea of “truth,” and how it applies to the recording of historic events. In class, we had all come to see that history is not “fact” so much as interpretation affected by perspective.

Horst would have been a good contributor to that class.

“History is written by the victors,” he said.

As if history weren’t enough of a topic, I was compelled to be nosier about this interesting man whose deftness with the technologies on his dashboard indicated he has made the most of his life learning.

Somehow we got on the subject of email -- his iPhone kept chirping, and he had a natural ability to multitask. He hit upon the essence of my dissertation research question with a brief commentary about the lost art of communication. He lamented the way today’s youth are reluctant to pick up a phone to call and talk, choosing instead to text or email.

“The human touch,” Horst observed. “They don’t know how to communicate in person, and they don’t even know it.”

I practically bolted upright in my seat. I voiced agreement, and made a mental note of reassurance to myself: “This is validation that you are on to something in your work. Get on it.”

The long ride home was over much too fast. As we turned off the main drag onto my street, I asked him if he is now an American citizen. His children had been born here, he said, and had German and American passports, but Horst had never taken that ultimate step even though he had made a life and career for himself here.

“I recently flew home to Germany and was sitting on the plane next to a young woman,” Horst said. “We had been talking for a while and she asked me whether I consider myself to be German or American.”

I was dying to know myself, and waited for the answer.

“They say that wherever you spend the first 21 years of your life, that is what shapes you,” Horst said. “So some would say because I grew up and went to school in Germany, that makes me German. Now, I have spent more than 21 years here in this country, and some would say that makes me American.”

I was not sure which one he was going to pick. He had lived in Brussels for a while, spent two years in London, and of course, those two years in Paris. His company did the catering for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Who knows where else he has traveled, what adventures he has had; our drive had not been long enough to give me a full account.

“I consider myself both, but really, I am a citizen of the world.”

In a way, it’s what we all are called upon to be. Even if we don’t travel, we can learn from the history and cultures of other countries. Then we can take a lesson from Horst: soak it in and let it shine.

Copyright 2011 By Marianne V. Heffernan

Leaving Paris, Part 1: Imad

It appears that I suffer from chattermania, and I am happy to say there is no cure.

This is an affliction whereby I engage another person in chitchat, only to find that the reporter in me cannot resist furthering the conversation, no matter how travel-weary I am.

I cannot help myself. The questions begin to bubble; the answers trigger more questions and reactions on either end of the discussion, and the next thing I know, I am all in.

This happened to me as I wrapped up my recent Paris assignment and prepared to fly home. I was exceptionally tired and had made up my mind to have a quiet ride to Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Clearly, I do not have it in me to let a driver take me where I need to go without offering a bit of friendly hospitality.

So when he looked at me through the rearview mirror and asked if I had the chance to see any of the beautiful sights of Paris, I told him, no, and continued to explain.

My job had been a busy one on this short trip, and I didn’t have the time to squeeze in much. I was OK with that, I said, since I had been here on business several years ago and met up with my husband later when my work was done. We had spent a couple of days sightseeing, so I had previously enjoyed some of the City of Light.

“All that I am going to see of Paris this time is whatever we happen to pass on our way to the airport,” I said.

The driver saw an opportunity, and took it. “OK,” he said in a heavy French accent. “I will take a little different route,” he said. “We will still get there on time, but I will show you some things.”

With that, I listened hard to his manner of speech, picking out the essence of the few places on the way, which included the main entrance to the Gare du Nord (“North Station”) -- Paris’ equivalent of our own Grand Central Terminal in NYC.

His name was Imad and he was Arab. He was born in Tunisia. I really can’t tell you the full background on Imad because I wasn’t taking notes, and wanted to give him my full attention as he spoke and pointed out the sights.

Not only did Imad drive by the impressive Gare du Nord and slow down so I could snap a photo with my Blackberry, he explained the rail system in Paris, and delved into a bit of the history of how Napoleon Bonaparte was responsible for its development and for much of the infrastructure of Paris.

“Napoleon did everything he want,” Imad said, sounding like a Parisian who really knows French history. “He crazy!” (Note that I am quoting Imad precisely, not to poke fun at his English -- which was very good -- but to emphasize that even the slight imperfection in his speech was effective in conveying the message.)

The rest of the way to the airport, I peppered the conversation with questions. I wanted to get to know this interesting historian of sorts.

I learned that Imad is 36 and divorced. “I married and divorced the same woman twice,” he said with a smile that said, “I know how stupid that sounds.” Together, they have an intelligent 9-year-old daughter whom he sees every 14 days.

He says he will not marry again, in spite of having a girlfriend now, and is focused on being “rich in the heart.” Imad searched for the word, then pronounced himself an optimist.

“Everybody have a chance in this life. The life is only one life. I am, how do you say, positive.” When I asked him what he plans to do next, he seemed sad that he did not have a good answer. “I don’t know,” he said.

By the time we got to Charles de Gaulle, I was rushing to get to my gate because traffic had held us up. Imad grabbed my bags and led me into the terminal where a mob of travelers were clamoring for kiosks and baggage counters.

In French, he asked a Delta rep for guidance, and within 20 seconds had me in the right line, waiting to get through initial security. I fished around in my wallet for the last Euros I had, and after shaking his hand, stuffed the bills in his hand. “For you. Thank you for the great ride and conversation.”

He seemed surprised and almost embarrassed at the tip.

“OK, I see you next time,” he said. I laughed, remembering how I had told him when I first got into the car that when my husband and I come back to Paris, we’ll call him to drive us around. “Yes, next time!” I said. I adjusted my luggage around me and watched him dash off to his car at the curb outside.

Two minutes later, there was a tap on my shoulder. I turned around, and there was Imad, handing me a frosty bottle of Evion water.

“It may be a long wait to get through the line,” he said, smiling. I nodded my head, smiled broadly at him and accepted the water, then warmly squeezed his arm.

My quick friendship with Imad was a pleasant surprise but it shouldn’t have been a surprise at all that we could have made a friendly connection in the 90-minute ride to the airport.

It was, for me, a reminder that we are all the same -- people with relationship or family or employment issues, human issues, problems and challenges that are often just beneath the surface and maybe need to be aired out if someone cares enough to ask. It doesn’t matter if you have been friends for 30 years or 30 minutes. When we share who we are, it makes the journey richer.

Next post: Meet Horst, a true Citizen of the World. You’re going to like this guy.

Copyright 2011 By Marianne V. Heffernan

Letter to My Dad

It’s Father’s Day and I am away from home. It is the second time in the last five years that I am missing this holiday with my father because of my job. It could not be helped, but I am sad to miss a chance to make a memory this year with him.

I have been thinking about how I can “share” the day with him via cyberspace by blogging about the impact he has had on my life, and thought I would jot down a few things that come to mind that I am thankful for. My father does not have a computer and he has never been on the Internet, but if you will indulge me, there may be something of value in this for you as well.

Dear Dad,

Thank you for the Dodge Dart. At the time, I was 18 and a sophomore in college. At first, I did not “love” that car, but I did love the way you dropped it off for me while I was working at my part-time job at KFC. You brought the keys inside to tell me it was mine.

It wasn’t a Camaro or a Firebird or any other cool sports cars that other kids had, but it was a safe car that ran well and would get me to campus for class every day. And you bought it for me. With all the expenses we had in our household, you got me a car of my own, and I know that was a sacrifice you made.

Thank you for showing me how to check the oil in it, and how to not flood the engine when it wouldn’t turn over, by sticking a screwdriver in the carburetor. (Or whatever that was.) I know the lesson you were conveying was one of being independent. You did not differentiate between your sons and your daughters in this way; you taught us all how to take care of ourselves, and to do it in the most economical way possible. That was the added bonus lesson of “don’t waste anything.”

Thank you for helping me when I ran out of gas at the bottom of Route 188 when I was in my 20s. Even though you grumbled the whole time and had to walk all the way down the hill with me to figure out I was out of gas, you didn’t leave me hanging. You helped me.

Thank you for leaving your homemade soup in my apartment refrigerator when I was struggling to live on my own and for making me laugh at the way you intentionally labeled it in masking tape that read: “Pee Soup.” Your sense of humor is something you handed down to each and every one of your kids. We are largely good-natured, compassionate and caring people because of you.

Thank you for pushing me to get a good education so I could have career opportunities to contribute to the building of a good life for myself one day. I know you are still waiting for me to get this next degree, and Dad, I am trying. You are one of my biggest motivations to succeed, because I know how proud of me you are.

Today, I am one of the lucky people who can still wish my father a Happy Father’s Day. He is nearly 81 years old, still in relatively good health and getting around on his own, and still living in the house he built for our family almost 50 years ago. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I know I have been blessed to have a father who took his role seriously.

What did you learn from your father? What memory stands out that you cherish?

Copyright 2011 by Marianne V. Heffernan

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

Paying respects long overdue

To his hometown, he is the name on a sign that overlooks the high school football field. To the world, he is a name on a famous wall. To our country, he is a hero. If you try to find out why, you will be surprised to learn that there is very little information available to tell the story of John Thomas DeBarber.

I know this because last week I tried to hunt down the details of what happened to DeBarber on Oct. 17, 1966. That was the day he died serving his country in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam. 

You would think you could simply “Google” him and find a host of links containing news stories about him, or other mentions from the past 45 years that would offer a glimpse of this brave young soldier’s life.

Sadly, shockingly, this is not the case. Perhaps this is not uncommon for many of our soldiers over the years. Considering the conversations I had this week in pursuit of DeBarber’s story, I will suggest that it seems to be the case for many soldiers who served in the Vietnam War. 

DeBarber was 21 years old when he was killed in action in the Long An Province of South Vietnam. For the past nearly 45 years, he had been an unsung hero of his hometown of Seymour, Connecticut. 

Anyone who has ever been to watch a home game of the Seymour High School Wildcats will have seen his name on the sign that stands tall overlooking the field. For all the “familiarity” of the name, there may not be as many who know that DeBarber was the first Seymour soldier to die in the Vietnam War. 

For that matter, there were only two Seymour boys to be killed in action in that war -- the second, Ronald M. Randall, 19, died May 21, 1968 serving in the United States Marine Corps. I might never have known that either, had I not started asking around about John  DeBarber. 

His friends called him “Ace,” and he wore #43 as a runningback for then-coach Joe Gesek’s Wildcats. DeBarber loved football, and even noted it as one of two “ambitions” in his high school yearbook listing (the other was to be a test pilot). He was a bit of a free spirit, preferring hanging out with his friends to hitting the books, and he talked about traveling. 

He helped out at his family’s gas station, “Duke’s,” and worked at the defunct Klarides supermarket -- each a stone’s throw from the family home on West Street. A smalltown boy with big dreams. You might say that DeBarber had that “fire” of youth: the desire to see the world, have adventures. He wanted to really live. 

So it was just after graduation in June 1963 that DeBarber took that step, signing up with the U.S. Army at a time when the Vietnam War was heating up thousands of miles away from his little hometown.

He was assigned to Charlie Company, 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division. Known as the “Lightning division,” these are the soldiers portrayed in the 1986 film, “Platoon.” 

Their mission was search and destroy, DeBarber’s younger brother Louis said. “They would look for rice paddies, water buffalo, destroy whatever they found. He wrote letters back, there were many missions with his guys, and many of them got killed. It was fierce fighting going on.”

This was a war in which the guerilla battle tactics of the Viet Cong included replacing land mines with artillery, according to Wikipedia. John DeBarber was the victim of this battle tactic, according to accounts of his family and a posting on www.VirtualWall.org from a soldier who served with him.

“John was a good Sgt. [acting] He liked to walk point. He worked with you in details. He watched over you in combat. He was a good manchu. He has been in my memory for all this time. The night he became a KIA was sad. The platoon walked into an ambush...”

DeBarber’s sister, Kathy Gabianelli, said her brother had two weeks to go on his tour of duty. “He was looking forward to getting out,” she said.

He came home in a glass coffin. The line of mourners who came to pay respects at the Upson-Ward Funeral Home (now Miller-Ward) was never ending. “It was two days for the wake and funeral, and it was nonstop people from the time it started to the end,” Gabianelli recalled.

With Memorial Day approaching and his life story on my mind, I visited DeBarber’s grave site this week. As an American soldier killed in action, he could have been buried in Arlington National Cemetery, but his family chose to keep him close.

Arthur Paquette, caretaker for St. Augustine’s Cemetery, observed the grave marker, noting that DeBarber was a foot soldier. “He was right in it,” he noted. Then he paused. 

“Those boys from Vietnam really took it on the chin,” Paquette said. “They took it from the Viet Cong over there, and when they came home, they got it from the American people.”

There are many who agree with him. The Vietnam War was unpopular with many Americans who felt the U.S. should not have been there. 

Maybe that’s why I couldn’t find any stories in the local newspaper about DeBarber’s death. What little there is, gave too little detail to respect a young man who made the ultimate sacrifice. 

For DeBarber’s family, their memories are of a young man who took them fishing at Hoadley’s Pond, or was caught skipping school to play golf at the old Great Hill Golf Country Club. “He was kindof a renegade,” Louis DeBarber said. That renegade was awarded three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and several other medals in recognition of his service to his country.

“There are certain times you remember,” Louis DeBarber said. “Every so often, I think of how old he would be. The rest of my life, it’ll be there. It’s never gonna disappear.”

DeBarber’s name is on Line 081, Panel 11E of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. It is also on a memorial in Seymour’s French Memorial Park, and the simple military grave marker in St. Augustine Cemetery where he was laid to rest. To those who knew and loved him, he was much more than a name on a wall. To the rest of us, he is an American hero.

**Look for John DeBarber's story in Sunday's Waterbury-Republican American newspaper.

Copyright 2011 by Marianne V. Heffernan

Copyright 2011 By Marianne V. Heffernan