dear bill today is February 13th 1984 I
came to this black wall again to see and touch your name and as I do I wonder if
anyone ever stops to realize that next to your name on this black wall as your
mother's heart a heartbroken fifteen years ago today when you lost your life
in Vietnam and as I look at your name William our stocks I think of how many
many times I used to wonder how scared and homesick you must have been in that
strange country called Vietnam and if and how it might have changed you for
you were the most happy-go-lucky kid in the world
hardly ever sad or unhappy and until the day I die I will see you as you laughed
at me even when I was very mad at you and the next thing I knew we were
laughing together but on this past New Year's Day I had my answer
I talked by phone to a friend of yours from Michigan who spent your last
Christmas and the last four months of your life with you Jim told me how you
died for he was there and saw the helicopter crash he told me how you had
flown your quota and had not been scheduled to fly that day how the
regular pilot was unable to fly and had been replaced by someone with less
experience how they did not know the exact cause of the crash how it was
either hit by enemy fire or that they hit a pole or something unknown how the
blades went through the chopper and hit you how you lived about a half hour but
were unconscious and therefore did not suffer he said how your jobs were like
sitting ducks they would send you men out to draw the enemy into the open and
then they would send in the big guns and planes to take over
meantime death came to so many of you he told me how after a while over there
instead of a yellow streak the men got a mean streak down their backs each day
the street got bigger and the men became meaner everyone but you bill he said how
you stayed the same happy-go-lucky guy that you were when you arrived in
Vietnam how your warmth and friendliness drew the guys to you how your lieutenant
gave you the nickname of Spanky and soon your group Jim included were
all known as Spanky's gang how when you died it made it so much harder on them
for you were there moral support and he said how you of all people should never
have been the one to die Oh God how it hurts to write this but I must
face it and then put it to rest I know that after Jim talked to me he must have
relived it all over again and suffered so before I hung up the phone I told Jim
I loved him loved him for just being your close friend than for sharing the
last days of your life with you and for being there with you when you died how
lucky you were to have him for a friend and how lucky he was to have had you
later that same day I received a phone call from a mother in Billings Montana
she had lost her daughter her only child a year ago she needed someone to talk to
for no one would let her talk about the tragedy she said she had seen me on
television on New Year's Eve after the Christmas letter I wrote to you and left
that this memorial had drawn newspaper and television attention she said she
had been thinking about me all day and just had to talk to me she talked to me
of her pain and seemingly needed me to help her with it I cried with this
heartbroken mother and after I hung up the phone I laid my head down and cried
as hard for her here was a mother calling me for help with her pain over
the loss of her child a grown daughter and as I sobbed I thought how can I help
her with her pain when I have never completely been able to cope with my own
they tell me the letters I write to you and leave here at this memorial are
waking others up to the fact that there is still much pain left after all these
years from the Vietnam War but this I know I would rather to have had you for
21 years and all the pain that goes with losing you than never to have had you at
all
mom
and that was a letter written by mrs. Eleanor Wimbish mother of Sergeant
William our Spanky stalks from Glen Burnie Maryland I was killed in action
in a helicopter crash in Vietnam on February 13th 1969 that letter was one
of many that she is written and places beneath panel 32 where his name is
etched into the Vietnam Memorial Wall along with more than 58,000 other names
of our fallen heroes and I read an interview with mrs. Wimbish from 1990
and in that interview she said when my son died I wrote my pledge I said I will
not now or ever let people forget so
for mrs. Wimbish and her son bill Spanky stocks during this holiday season let us
all remember remember the service and supreme sacrifice of so many and also
let us learn some important lessons from mrs. Wimbish and from her son from mrs.
Wimbish we learn to be thankful for what we have had even if it is lost and even
if that loss causes pain still be thankful and from her son bill we can
learn that even in the face of horror and death we can maintain our warmth and
our friendliness and that that warmth and friendliness can guide and support
others can help bolster the spirit of those around you by simply smiling
so as we celebrate the holidays let us be thankful for what we have and like
Sergeant William bill Spanky stocks keep smiling
have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year