On Memorial Day, we always remember

Trey Prather: His LSU football bio photo; his and his parents' gravesite

     This is a day to remember. Memorial Day always is a day to remember.
     We remember Terry Cross. That will mean something to his friends from Oakdale, La., and Louisiana Tech University.
     We remember Gene Youngblood. That will mean something to his friends from Fair Park High School in Shreveport, and all the friends he made afterward.
     We -- those of us from Woodlawn High School -- remember Glenn Ogburn, Edward Cox and Harold O'Neal ... and, of course, Henry Lee Prather III. Trey.
     All were military servicemen who died in action in the Vietnam War.
     Obviously, Memorial Day encompasses much more than those killed in Vietnam. It covers all those who died in the service of our country while in the military. As several Facebook friends have pointed out, this is not a day to honor all servicemen; that's Veterans' Day (Nov. 11).
     All wars are horrible, and we all suffer. And we can debate the merits, or non-merits, of U.S. involvement, which is what happened on my Facebook page this past weekend -- and I didn't ask for that.
     Every war stirs our passions. We know looking back that it was crucial for the Americans to help save the world in World Wars I and II. We're not so sure about the Iraq and Afghanistan involvements; those are being questioned, second-guessed even today.
     For people of my generation, Vietnam -- and those who died there -- is the one with which we most identify. And it remains a contentious topic even now.
     We know that the American government -- led by the big man from Texas with the big personality and the big ears -- and the military leaders misled us, misguided our troops, and we question all those wasted lives, those young men with all their promise gone.
     More on this below. Here's what doesn't change: The permanence of those names on the Vietnam Wall; our memories of those young men; our grieving for them. I think of them most of all on Memorial Day.
     I have posted blog pieces over the past 3 1/2 years on Trey Prather and the other Woodlawn kids. Here are the links: 
http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2014/05/this-knight-was-right.html
http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2012/05/memorial-day-memory.html
http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2012/05/special-salute-to-fallen-knights.html
http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2012/02/fallen-warrior-trey.html
     Now about two other young men ...
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USMC 2nd Lt. Terry Cross

     I did not know Herbert Terrell (Terry) Cross very well. He was from Oakdale and was on the track and field team at Louisiana Tech, a sprinter known for his explosive starts, according to a friend (and conference discus champion), Tim Hall.

     To be honest, he wasn't one of our front-line runners. He was just on the team. But he was an outstanding student. I remember him, in 1967, as a dormitory monitor on the floors where the athletes roomed -- a quiet guy, nice guy, seemingly always reading, always studying.
     He was at Tech an extra year working on a master's degree in mechanical engineering. He graduated in December 1967.
     I did not realize, or had forgotten, that he was in the ROTC program at Tech. So when he graduated, he joined the Marines, and quickly was a Second Lieutenant ... and was off to Vietnam.
     Four months after graduation -- April 8, 1968 -- he was killed in action. He was 24. Here is the link to his page on the Vietnam Virtual Wall: http://www.virtualwall.org/dc/CrossHT01a.htm.
     I was a junior at Tech; I do remember getting the word that he had died. He was the second person (and athlete) killed in Vietnam that I had written about; it made an impact because he died three months after Trey Prather.
     I don't think Tech did much, or anything, to honor Terry. But two years ago, some of his former teammates, the Tech track and field program, and people from Oakdale put together a Terry Cross memorial service prior to the annual Jim Mize Invitational meet at Tech. 
     From a story in the Oakdale newspaper: His family was presented a service portrait painting of him and a copy was given to the Louisiana Tech Alumni Center. The Jim Mize Invitational's first running event, the 4x100 relay, was named the Terry Cross Memorial race.
     Great touch. Long overdue.
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Army Sgt. Gene Youngblood

     I did not know Gene Youngblood at all. I wasn't even aware of him until a couple of years ago. 
     But his younger brother, Tommy Youngblood, was a star athlete at Fair Park High, a Class AAA All-State defensive end the same year Trey Prather was the All-State quarterback. Like Trey, Tommy signed a football scholarship at LSU and he was Trey's teammate -- and a friend -- for two years.
     After I wrote a couple of articles on Trey, Tommy -- who lives in Highland Park (Dallas suburb) -- contacted me and wanted to meet. He had known several Woodlawn kids, dated a few Woodlawn girls, and wanted to talk about Trey and LSU. 
     We've become friends, and Tommy told me that not only did Trey's leaving LSU and joining the Marines and his subsequent death hit him hard, his older brother died in Vietnam only a month after Trey.
     "He was always an ROTC guy, a military-type guy," Tommy recalled. "Fair Park had a really good rifle-drill marching team."
     When Gene got out of school, knowing he was about to be drafted, he enlisted in the Army and went to Officer Candidate School (OCS). But that didn't take, so he wound up in basic training in 1966, served at Fort Polk and Fort Benning, earned a sergeant rank, and  went to Vietnam in 1967.
     Charles Eugene Youngblood -- Gene to his family and friends -- was one of 10 men in his platoon killed in a Tet offensive battle in the province of Hua Nghia on Feb. 12, 1968. The cause of death listed: multiple fragmentation wounds. He was 23. A page link:
http://army.togetherweserved.com/army/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=75609
     "He was a fun guy, an interesting guy, a good guy," Tommy remembers. "He knew people from everywhere -- Fair Park, Woodlawn, Marshall (Texas). He had girlfriends from everywhere."
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     On my Facebook home page, Sylvia Pesek of Haynesville, La. -- the hometown of Trey Prather's mother and maternal grandparents -- posted a few paragraphs from one of my previous blogs (this was from a story written 20 years ago by someone else).
     Here is a portion of a remark made in response by a person whose name I am not going to publish here:
     "Maybe we should forget their names and tear down their monuments and quit memorializing their acts of war, whether they be 'voluntary' or 'conscripted.' The whole idea has to end somewhere, and as long as we keep making heroes of the victims, it will never end."
     There's more, but you get the idea. And there might be people who agree. But I don't, and others don't.
     Tom Dixon's reply to this person (and I don't know Tom): "Memorializing the person who gave their life in military service is NOT memorializing the cause. Any man who dies or risks death to protect or save the life of his fellows (and here, I primarily mean his brothers in arms) is a true hero. The 17-, 18-, and 19-year-olds who served with me in Nam didn't start, understand nor promulgate that (bleeping) war. They 'served' as best they knew how."
     And here was Sylvia's reply: "You do not forget the names of friends or family. You do NOT. ... And they were ALL somebody's friends and family."
     Yes, they were. Prather, Cox, Ogburn, O'Neal, Terry Cross, Gene Youngblood, thousands and thousands of others. They gave their service; they gave their lives.
     Bless them all. Honor them all. We always remember.

A tradition ... with tears

The scene at the monument in Woodlawn's
 quadrangle at this year's memorial service
 (photo courtesy of Cindy DeBusk
 McGowan on Facebook's Woodlawn Knights
 Alumni page)

        There is a tradition at Woodlawn High School in Shreveport that began in the late 1960s, and carries on.

        On a Friday morning this time each year, the school  honors its graduates who died in military service while serving in places such as Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

        This year's ceremony was last Friday. I'm sure it was as impressive as it's always been.
         Woodlawn is a much different school than it was in the late 1960s. The faculty turnover is complete and today's students have no ties to what happened then, except they're on the same school grounds. But this memorial service is much the same.
       It's a relatively short service, at sunrise, with music and  prayer, and the laying of a wreath of roses at the memorial monument near the flagpole. It ends with Taps.
      The setting is spectacular -- Woodlawn's quadrangle area. Anyone associated with the school remembers how beautiful it is.
      Used to be that the Woodlawn band, pep squad and cheerleaders were in uniform, and football team members wore their game jerseys. Because the school colors are scarlet (red) and royal blue -- with white trim -- it was an appropriate American setting.
       As far as I know, every year James Parker has been  there to play his bagpipe. When he was younger, he would come in from a distance on the school roof playing Amazing Grace. The tears would begin then.
       When Taps is played, as former Woodlawn coach A.L. Williams noted last week, he always thinks of Trey Prather.
        It is a moving ceremony, emotional, truly a time for reflection. The moments of silence, except for sobs, can be overwhelming.
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      The tradition began in 1969, but could be traced to January 1968, to a half-mast ceremony in the quadrangle the morning that Henry Lee "Trey" Prather's body returned to Shreveport, days after he died in Vietnam. The next year the Student Council purchased a monument bearing the names of the four WHS graduates who had died in battle circumstances, and the first full service was held.
       I went to only one service, in 1984, when Jerry Byrd and I left work at the Shreveport Journal that morning to attend. What happened that day sticks in my memory.
       H. Lee Prather -- Trey's dad -- was there that day. I had not seen him since the day of Trey's funeral, 16 years earlier.
       Can't excuse that gap, other than to say the pain was too great; there was no way I could visit the Prathers without a total breakdown. Mrs. Prather (Marilyn) died just two years after Trey; her heart broken. I had heard that Mr. Prather had remarried and, after years of alcohol abuse, had overcome some of his demons.
       But I don't want to mislead you. Lee Prather was the biggest fan Oak Terrace and Woodlawn had in those years, omnipresent at practices and games. There were more than a couple of road games when it was just Mr. Prather -- and Mr. Van Thyn (Louis, my dad) -- rooting for the Knights in the stands.
       And Mr. Prather never -- never -- interfered with the coaches. His father, H.L. Prather, had been the longtime basketball coach (and then school president) at Northwestern State College; hence, Prather Coliseum on the campus.
     I had nothing but respect for Lee Prather; I'd been to the house so many times. Sure, alcohol was ever-present there, but the Prathers were beautiful people.
      That morning in 1984 -- as usual -- there was a reception in the Woodlawn faculty lounge just before the ceremony. Suddenly, I found myself face-to-face with Lee Prather.
      I hugged him tight, but when I tried to speak, I couldn't. I cannot tell this story, or write it, without tearing up ... ever. Anyone who knows me knows I am seldom speechless. But that day ...
      I had to leave the room and go outside. And during the ceremony, we sat two rows behind Mr. Prather, his wife and other members of the family. When they sobbed, I sobbed.
      Never did talk to Mr. Prather; just couldn't do it. And a year later, he was gone. I hope he knew how much I loved his family.
 ---
      During the ceremony, I tried to focus on my memories of Trey ... his dark, sharp features, the way he practiced and played so hard in every sport, how damn good he was at all of them, how he loved to throw a football and run it, how he wasn't afraid of contact on the football field or the basketball court, his broken arm that ended his sophomore football season, his two wild wrestling matches in basketball with North Caddo's very rugged Johnny Ray Alexander.
     His 8-for-8 game from the floor in basketball at Byrd when we almost upset the Yellow Jackets (the cutline under his photo in the Journal the next day started, "This Knight Was Right"), a home run he hit against Byrd, the day in Cotton Valley when he was catching and Butch Daniel -- a tough little guy who would go on to play safety at Louisiana Tech -- slammed into him, causing Trey to bite his tongue (he had to return to Shreveport for stitches).         

      His laugh, his sometimes X-rated, uproarious language, how popular he was with everyone and how friendly he was, how often he bummed money from me for snacks (he referenced that in signing my yearbook in our senior year), the rides he gave Ken Liberto and me, the hours and hours we spent watching football films at the Prather house, seeing him up at Woodlawn that last time the summer after our freshman year -- Trey home from LSU, Ken and me from Tech.

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      I'm sorry I didn't make more of the memorial services at Woodlawn; I should have. It's tough to do now that we don't live in Shreveport. And, frankly, I have another memorial service at about the same time of year that I want to attend because it's more personal.

      The past two years I've been asked to be one of the 11 candle lighters at the Shreveport-Bossier Holocaust Remembrance Service. For years, my parents were among those lighters -- and my mother a speaker almost every year. They're gone, and I'm honored to replace them in that portion of the service which symbolizes the 11 million people who died in the Holocaust.

     A couple of weeks ago, I sat at that service and reflected on my parents, and the grandparents, aunt and uncles I never knew. Wish I had.

       But Trey Prather I knew. And I thank the people at Woodlawn for honoring Trey and the other WHS grads whose names are on that monument. We'll always be proud of them, and of our school.
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      (NOTE: Also posting a 1990 story from The Shreveport Times about the ceremony, written by Evan Grant, who -- incidentally -- replaced me on The Times' sports staff and now covers the Texas Rangers for The Dallas Morning News.)