A Defining Moment

A Defining Moment Columbus GA, 1965 "Looks like Leon is home with all those cars in front of his house", I thought to myself. My 9 year old fist froze in mid air as I was about to knock on the screen door. A mournful sob emanated from the living room; it was his mom. A few hours earlier, Leon’s family had been the recipient of some dreadfully black news from the Dept of Defense, compliments of the Columbus Yellow Cab Company. Yes, the portrayal of this incident in the movie, "We Were Soldiers" was true, except many of us war families did not live on Ft. Benning, we resided in the civilian military town of Columbus. The casualties were so overwhelming, the death notices were delivered by cab. I saw Leon about a week later. Our eyes met briefly, and fell to the Georgia red dirt, as we kicked up a few nervous dust clouds with our Keds. "Wanna play?......" I asked quietly. "Yeah...." Leon replied. It was a time in my young life that has stayed with me for all of my years. My Dad had left earlier in the year and was serving during the time of Col Hal Moore, author of "We were Soldiers Once... and Young", in the 1st CAV Division in South Vietnam,. He was flying the Army’s biggest bird, the CH54 Skycrane, and its unusual size was trumped only by its bizarre shape. The pilots were close, likewise; the families left back home shared meals frequently while the gaggle of kids watched Batman twice weekly. (Pop, 1965, S. Vietnam) Our own black news soon enveloped our little rental home; one of the Cranes had crashed and all crew members had been killed instantly. It was a freak accident, not a direct act of war. The black and white Zenith TV glowed with the story, with this catch: "the names are not being released at this time, until notification of next of kin...." Sometime during this year, Mom had started taking my older brother, my toddling sister, and me to Hillcrest Baptist Church. Jeff and I "walked the aisle" one Sunday, as I felt a real need to "go down front". Mom prayed for us, took us to see the pastor, and on cue, during "Just As I Am", we went "down front". This, however is not the defining moment from my title. But it did start the spiritual wheel turning in my life, one that has seen a few frozen axles over the years, and currently is in overdrive. As the news played this story, it did not take a young boy long to figure out that the odds were not good. The Army had less than 10 of these big helos over there, and the number of trained pilots to fly these behemoths was minuscule in number. If it wasn’t Pop, it would surely be someone we knew. The defining moment came from a young Army wife, an incident that is burned into my brain and my memory forever. After LeeAnn was put down for the night, Mom gathered Jeff and me beside her bed. We knelt in prayer and I remember this: "God, what has happened, has happened. Please just give us the strength to handle what is to come." The security of those words, the power of a praying Mama. Yet as I think about it now, she was 35, fifteen years younger than I am now. I can only imagine her real thoughts and fears: "How am I going to raise these kids?, Will I have to go back to teaching? How can I do that with a toddler? Why can’t the Army get word to us? This can’t be happening.....". None of this came through to her children. Word finally did come after many agonizing hours. Pop’s life was spared, but a family that we shared spaghetti and Batman with weekly, well, life for them changed forever. Al Gajon, a true Cajun, was one of the casualties of that cruel accident. Two years ago, my son’s school took off for the annual Washington DC trip for Eighth graders. I wrote down CWO Gajon's name and told SteveO to take a picture of it on that long black wall. He presented it to his Grandpa upon return. As I have reviewed this defining moment in my life over the years, I am reminded of the following words of Christ: "....how I have often wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her chicks under her wing...."( Mt 23:37) It is my sincere prayer that there will be an incident burned into my son’s mind, somewhere on his journey on the Emmaus Road, of the undying, unselfish love of his own mother. The permanent memory of this incident has brought me home to Christ many times, this example of a loving Mama Hen gathering those chicks into a place of refuge and safety. Mark