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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, is your mother’s heart. A heart broken fifteen years ago today, when you lost your life in Vietnam.
And as I look at your name, William R. 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 passed 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 How the regular pilot was unable to fly and had been replaced by someone with less experience.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 streak 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 their moral support. And he said how you of all people should never had 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, and 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 at 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 heart broken 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 twenty-one years, and all the pain that goes with losing you, then never to have had you at all.
— Mom
And that was a letter written by Mrs. Eleanor Wimbish, Mother of Sgt. William R. “Spanky” Stocks, from Glen Burnie, Maryland. Who was killed in action in a helicopter crash in Vietnam on February 13th, 1969. That letter was one of many that she has written and places beneath panel 32. Where his name is etched into the Vietnam Memorial Wall, along with more than fifty-eight thousand 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.
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The above is a transcript of the audio from a video titled “Be Greatful, and Keep Smiling: Christmas 2018” uploaded by Jocko Podcast. I do not own the rights to the video nor have gotten permission from Jocko. I simply heard that and had to share. I get and want nothing from this, other than a warmer heart from that spectacular letter and message.
Adventurous Aesthetics 