Memorial Day for a Sachem Defender
By Jeffrey M. Bowen
Often I think about him.
Bob was my hero.
Three classes ahead of me in high school.
A star debater.
Six feet,
Wavy hair and freckles.
I see his lettered sweater
With the big athletic L on the pocket.
White wool, buttons never done.
How I envied his quick wit,
His confident arrogance,
Delivered with the slightly snide cool
I aspired to.
He went with tall blond Pam for awhile,
Until she told him to go to hell
Because he joked about her ballet
At an LHS talent show.
But then they both grinned.
I stood behind him at the end zone.
He was a Sachem Defender.
I was in the band.
I saw the opposing fullback head straight toward him.
He never flinched.
He grabbed and rolled with the guy,
Brought him down,
But too late,
Beyond the goal line.
But so what.
It looked so good, so cool, just right.
Bob went to Bates College on a full scholarship,
A place known for debaters.
I lost track but saw him again
At our draft physical.
An aide to Senator McIntyre,
He already had a law degree
And was headed toward an illustrious political career.
But first, the draft lottery—his number came up early.
Army enlisted was his choice.
It would be a shorter interruption
For a guy headed places.
He was on a roll, still confident, still cool,
So funny, so relaxed.
I never knew for sure.
Friendly fire?
Trapped in a typing pool
In a quanset hut on the edge of a jungle?
Maybe both?
But he never did return.
His destiny was stopped dead.
So futile, such a waste, so damned needless.
Bob was a hero – a special one for me.
He was a Sachem Defender.
I wanted to be like him.
I wanted his way with words,
His slightly lobsided smile,
His geniality,
His snide remarks,
His freckles,
His indefinable importance
Whenever he walked into a room.
His face, his presence,
They endure so vividly.
Bob will be my Memorial Day forever.
2015 Note: Many of my classmates who served with me in
Vietnam remember Bob well. Like me, they
heard rumors about his demise, but never learned the truth except to say it was
bad. One woman from a class or two behind me in high school remembers Bob as a
lifeguard at Weirs Beach near Laconia, N.H. where we grew up. She was 5 years old and recalls Bob’s
unfailing kindness to the little ones like her who constantly pestered him on
the beach. Often we have special
memories of those larger-than-life upperclassmen who graduate ahead of us.
Surely, Bob evokes those special memories, as well as a sense of tragedy given
the needless circumstances of his death.
