Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Harry Truman Satterfield is 21 today.  He was 21 yesterday and he will be 21 tomorrow and for all eternity.

I went to high school with Harry Truman Satterfield. He was one of those quiet, unassuming farm boys that rarely spoke in class, or at all for that matter.  Never ran around with a rowdy crowd, never made waves of any sort.  He wasn’t a loner and was nice enough when you got to know him, but it would have been possible to have gone to school with Harry for the entire 12 years and not ever notice he was there. 

I probably would never have known Harry Truman Satterfield except for the fact that I graduated with a class small enough that everyone knew everyone, at least by name and, secondly, because Harry and I both played football.  I played center and Harry played guard right beside me.  Whatever kept him in check in class, or elsewhere in life, disappeared when he strapped on the pads.  Playing football long before weight training bulked young bodies in to behemoths, we were a scrawny bunch, even on the line.  Harry was small even for those days probably not weighing 150 pounds soaking wet.  Yet in drills he was the guy I never wanted hitting me and he had a fearsome body block that he threw without regard for himself that would crush larger opponents.  As good as I remember him as a football player, he was an even better wrestler and that sport was his true passion.  For those whose only exposure to wrestling is the WWF or whatever they call it today, believe me you have not seen “wrestling” until you have watched high school or college athletes in action.  Although I probably outweighed Harry by a good 25 pounds, he could tie me in knots so quick it could make your head swim, and mine often did.

When high school was finished in 1965, a good number of us packed up that fall for college.  I don’t know what Harry did.  I suppose he went back home and started on a career as a farmer, going to church each Sunday, thinking there was girl around somewhere he would eventually meet and marry and together they would build a family and quietly spend a life together.

In 1966 when the letter came (“Greetings from the President of the United States”), I doubt seriously if a single thought passed through Harry Truman Satterfield’s mind other than it was his time to serve.  On February 28,1967, just four months past his 21^st birthday; a time when young men should be celebrating their coming of age by legally getting drunk, chasing skirts, and generally raising hell in the great celebration of life, PFC Harry Truman Satterfield, B CO, 1ST BN, 16TH INFANTRY, 1ST INF DIV, in Tay Ninh, Republic of South Vietnam, died as a result of hostile ground fire, grenade.

Harry lies in a grave near his hometown of Madison, North Carolina, USA, still 21 years old after all these years.  He will never know the pain of aging, the joy of children, the warm feel of a loving woman sleeping by his side.  He has missed the extraordinary events of the last 40 plus years.  His was a life incomplete, unfulfilled.

Jacob Carroll is 20 years old today.  He was 20 yesterday and he will be 20 tomorrow, and for all eternity. 

I know less about Jacob Carroll than I do about Harry Truman Satterfield.  I know he lived in North Carolina, played football in high school, and loved restoring a vintage car with his uncle.  He came from a family who had a history of military service, both his father and his grandfather having done so with honor.  Jake received no greetings from the President of the United States but upon completing high school he volunteered for the army “because”, he said, “it was his duty.”  He did not just volunteer for the army, he volunteered for the Airborne; a sure guarantee that you would be sent in harm’s way.

On November 13, 2009 Specialist Jacob C. Carroll, Company B, 2^nd BN, 502 Infantry Regiment, 2^nd Brigade Combat Team, died in Kandahar, Afghanistan as the result of an insurgent suicide bomber.  Like my Friend Harry Truman Satterfield his was another incomplete, unfulfilled life.

The only reason I know about Specialist Jacob C. Carroll is that he was the son of my wife’s first cousin and we attended his funeral in North Carolina.  Funerals are always emotional, but there is something about the death of a young person that tears at the humanity in us all.  His minister, friends, army representatives, and family said many fine things about Jake on that day; but the words that stuck most clearly in my mind were those of his Mother.  As she gripped the church pulpit so tightly her knuckles whitened, in a voice choked with grief and emotion she said, “He was my Life.  He was my Life.”

Harry Truman Satterfield was someone’s Life way back when.  He was someone’s son; someone’s brother and I hope that he did not leave this fair earth without being the love of some young girl’s life.

It is not my intent in writing this to take a stand on the right or wrong of War.  I am not that wise.  It does seem that we are the only species on the planet that engages in the practice and as long as one man anywhere is willing to be covetous there will be other men to challenge him.  I don’t know if we should have invaded Iran and Afghanistan.  I leave that in the hands of the people I have entrusted to lead me.  I do know that when old people make such decisions, young people die, and with each death, like Harry and Jake, a life goes uncompleted, unfulfilled and other lives are irrevocably changed.  “He was my Life.  He was my Life”, echoes through the ages.

I guess my point in all this is to say that when you see or hear that five soldiers died in a roadside bombing or that the two thousandth American Soldier was killed today; please, please understand that they are not a number like five or two thousand.  Each of them is Harry or Jake.  They are young lives that will never grow old.  They are someone’s life, someone’s heart, and they should be remembered by someone somewhere for not only who they were but also who they might have been.

Okay Harry.  I've been carrying this around for damn near forty years and here it is.

“Where Have all The Soldiers Gone?

Gone to graveyards everyone.

When will they ever learn, oh when will they ever learn?”

As Time Goes By.