I came back to Oklahoma with our children, and Ken went back to the war.  Six more months to do.

He took command of a squadron in Nam.  I think it was VMA 311, but I don't really remember for sure.  The problem with being in control of a squadron is that you get to  choose when you want to fly.  At least I thought it was a problem, because when some young Second Lt. was assigned a hop that was going to be treacherous, Ken replaced him.  He felt he had "been there" in Korea and he had a better chance of surviving.  (I didn't know about that either, until it was all over.)

I think God probably saved his life. Because after a very short time,  a new commander of the group gave Ken's squadron to one of his old buddies.  Ken was furious.  Absolutely raging that he had been reassigned.  Especially after the General told him that it had been done without him knowing or approving it.  The new squadron commander didn't last long, however.  He was inexperienced in the airplane and before two weeks were up he had killed over fifty friendlies on the ground. You don't learn how to fly an airplane in war without having the correct experience.

But God took care of Ken.  He took the job as Operations Officer for the group.  General Anderson asked for him personally, so Ken had six months to cool off.  And he was in control of all of the different squadron's flights so he could fly anything he wanted anytime he wanted.  But he was still furious.

I wrote him and told him that he should probably cut Romans 8:28 out of his Bible because  it obviously wasn't working for him.  He read it, and never forgot what I had said in that letter.  Through the years he quoted what I had written many times.

Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."  Even disappointments.

Like I said, I think God saved his life.

We wrote every day.  He wrote, "It has rained seventy two days in a row.  My finger-nail clippers have  rusted inside my pocket."

"Scott got stung by over a hundred bees.  He hit a swarm with a broom.  And no, I don't know why.  And no, it didn't kill him by some miracle."

"My tent is wet, the floor is wet.  I have been taking extra hops so I can see the sun."

"I made the girls Easter dresses.  They are really pretty."

We didn't write about the war.  I didn't know he had been hit until after he came home.

The government decided to do something they had never done before.  If you lasted six months in Vietnam, you could take leave and go to Hawaii.  So the four of us met him.  I just charged it to a credit card and took the three children.  I thought I'd figure out how to pay for it later.  I was afraid that if they didn't go they might not see him again. It was surreal.  Strange.  Seven days, then everybody said goodbye, we came back to Oklahoma and he went back to Nam to get shot at.  So strange.

We climbed the tower over the Hawaii airport to watch his plane take off.  It moved to the end of the runway, turned and started to roll.  And at that very moment a rainbow arched across the runway, and he took off under it.  God speaks in many ways.  Whatever happened to Ken, God was in control.

Genesis 9:12a-13 "And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you... I do set my bow in the cloud and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth."  That particular rainbow was for me.  God was speaking to me.  Things like that don't happen accidentally.  I had a covenant with God and it was personal.

And of course in a hundred missions, he got hit.  I think everyone got hit.  A fifty millimeter through the canopy of the airplane.  And of all things, he was trying to take out a megaphone that had been harassing the ground troops.  A small target, but important to the men on the ground.

He said he was really, really low.  Trying to hit something that small going as fast as he was.  He got it, but they got him.  He had leaned forward to pull back on the stick to pull out or, as he put it, "It would have cleaned the wax out of both ears."  He got the airplane back, in pieces.  But then, he had done that before in Korea.  He got hit seven times in his first twenty-five missions.  Two airplanes were destroyed, but he got them back.  They pushed them over the side because they were so riddled and messed up.  No need to repair a wreck.

So many of the pilots that got hit had to eject, and ended up in the Hanoi Hilton (Prison camp).  A number of them were our friends.  It broke your heart.

I never turned the news on.  What would be the point.  I didn't want my three children to watch it.  They were the only children in Pryor (Oklahoma) that had someone in the war.  And nobody talked about it.  In the middle of the USA, where there were no military bases, it was like nothing was going on.  Very strange.  Vietnam was raging, and it seemed like our town was not tuned in.  I don't blame them, if I hadn't had a husband in the war, I wouldn't have tuned in either.

It was a stupid war.  If they hadn't have instituted the draft, who knows how long it would have gone on.  But the draft changed everything because most of those drafted didn't believe in the war.  And they rebelled.  And things changed. But not before Ken's tour was up.

Deuteronomy 33:27a  "The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms:  and he shall thrust out the enemy from before you…"

When Ken took command of the squadron, he had served almost eighteen years in the Marine Corps.  You can retire when you have served twenty years, although many Marines stay in.  But Ken's desire was to fly, and his dream had been to command a squadron, which if you are lucky will last two years.  After you have achieved that level, most of the jobs are desk jobs.  Not exactly what he signed up for.

By that time, Vietnam was a reality and many of the dozens of young men he had trained had already shipped out.  And some of them had already been shot down.  Ken agonized over not having the allocations to buy more JP6 (jet fuel) so that he could give them more time in the air before they went to war.  But Congress didn't allocate the money to buy more jet fuel.  It was what it was.  You got a certain number of training hops and then you were gone.

No one is ready to be shot at.  Experienced or not.  The odds of flying a hundred missions while being targeted are not good.   That was the thought in my mind when Ken got orders.  He had served nineteen and a half years when he got his orders to Vietnam.  Six months shy of retirement.  And a tour in Vietnam was a year.  Obviously he wasn't going to get to retire for a while.

We didn't talk about it.  What would be the point.  He was going.  My job was to start packing.  You just have to trust God, one way or another, and figure that he has a plan for our lives.

 Psalms 91: 10a-12  "There shall no evil befall you…for he shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.  They shall bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone (or a surface to air missile--my interpretation)."

Psalms 119: 116  "Uphold me according to your word, that I may live: and let me not be ashamed of my hope."

Hope.  A person can live on hope.

 

Psalms 56:3 "What time I am afraid, I will trust in You."  I was definitely afraid.  And it took what seemed like a lifetime before I found out that he had survived.

He was taking off in an A4, at full rotation (speed) when his nose strut (wheel) collapsed causing the fuel tanks under the wings to sink to the runway.  He was going so fast that the friction sheared into the fuel tanks and the whole thing went up in a ball of fire.  The only thing that saved him (other than the grace of God) was that he was going so fast, the cockpit stayed in front of the fire and by the time the plane stopped, all the fuel was burned up (as well as the plane).  He was a foot in front of all of that and had time to get out before the fire consumed the cockpit.

I told you that I never saw him fly.  I've never been sorry about that.  As long as I didn't see it, I could pretend that my life was normal.  He would get up, go to work, and come home for dinner.  Just like normal people.

The Russian ships took President Kennedy at his word (you'll have to Google all the history about that) and they turned around and went back to Russia. Cuba couldn't harm us without help from Russia.  So the guys in the squadron came home.  Thank God.

Psalms 23:"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:  for you are with me;…"

Whichever way it goes-whether you live or die-the Psalmist says, "…I will trust in You."  And even when you are living in a valley where death is all around you, he says, "I will fear no evil, for you are with me."  The Psalmist may have written it, but it comes from God.

II Timothy 3: 16-d17 "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:  That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works."

I spent last week in Washington DC.  I took all four of my children so that they might experience Ken's interment at Arlington National Cemetery with me.  I cannot begin to describe the experience.  He was buried with "Full Military Honors."  A huge band that marched two miles playing Christian hymns, the Marine Corps Hymn…with drums beating cadence and marching in perfect step, and that doesn't include the military escort which was even larger.  He was carried on a caisson with four horses led by another mounted officer.  It was much bigger than I could imagined.   All to honor his life.
I had a video made, which will be sent in a couple of months.  I'll post it.

…………………………...

We left Virginia for Beaufort S.C.  Ken had been assigned duty with a fighter squadron, so he was very excited.  He was promoted to Lt. Col. and became the Commanding Officer of VMA 331.  To say he was happy is an understatement.  He was experienced in aerial combat--Korea-- and would be training young men for the duty that was looming on the horizon.  Vietnam.  But first there was Cuba.

Russian ships were sailing toward American waters to assist Cuba--who was setting missiles in place aimed at us.  The Cold War.  Ken's squadron left their families and went south to Roosevelt Roads (East of Cuba) to prepare for the encounter.  It was very frightening.

As the Commanding Officer's wife, I was tasked with accompanying the Chaplain  if someone was killed.  I was only twenty five years old, way too young for such a duty.  I only got one call.  "We have a plane that has been destroyed and is on fire on the runway."

I asked for the number of the plane, and the caller said "Number one."  That was Ken's plane.

Philippians  4:19 "But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus."

A strange thing happened.  The Marine Corp didn't move us for almost three years.  After Ken was through school, they assigned him to a support squadron for the pilots in Junior School.  I think it was also for the FBI.  It wasn't the kind of squadron he wanted to be in--no jets.

We got to really know each other.  We hadn't had enough time together in the previous five years to actually do that.  I found out that not only did I love him, but I liked him.  He never complained.  He really didn't want anything.  He was happy to just "Be" and always indulged me.  Whatever I wanted, he wanted, too.  What a deal.  What a great person to live with.  Life was finally easy.

We always went to church.  Every time we moved, on the first Sunday, we joined a church.  We would visit with the pastor, tell him we were Bible teachers that they needed to put us to work or we would be gone before they learned "who and what" we were.  We would give him the name of our previous pastor so he could "check us out."  They always put us to work teaching.  1 Timothy 2:2 (My interpretation.)  "And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, the same truths you must commit to faithful people, who shall be able to teach others also."  We tried to do that.  I hope we did.


For the first time, we were in one place long enough to get to know some of the people.  For the first time, we made some friends. Then, in the search for self discovery, I started wondering if God had sent us a third child because He wanted us to have one.  I didn't know.  We talked it over and decided "one more" would be the thing that might help heal us.  Not that you can replace one child with another, but because something was missing.  So we had another child.  And when he was six weeks old, we moved.  To Beaufort, South Carolina.  There is no where on earth like Beaufort.  Heaven on earth.

I will not be talking to you for the rest of the week.  I'll finish the story on Monday the 24th.  If you haven't noticed yet, at the bottom of the blog is a place to transfer to Email.  Or you can drag the URL icon to your home page.  It makes it easier.

When we were at Camp Pendleton, a year after we were married, the Marine Corps decided to use the ground troops to do some testing with A-bombs.  And since Ken was attached to the Seventh Regiment, he "got to be" included.

It's hard to believe, but they took the men, put them in trenches at one-half mile from ground zero and set off not one, or two, but three bombs to see what the effects would be if you were  in a trench.  It sounds impossible to believe.  But they did it.  One of the bombs was the largest ever detonated, including the one dropped on Hiroshima during WW2.  I think it was named Diablo.  You can Google it.

They kept in contact with each of the men from 1957 (or maybe it was 1958) until the present to see if they got leukemia.  Really.  (I still get letters.)  They sent pamphlets to explain what the side effects might be.  Of course, they didn't tell you all this until years later.  By the time the men realized how intensively they had been exposed to radiation, it was too late.  Ken didn't get leukemia, but many of the men did.

One of the bombs didn't detonate.  They sat in trenches for hours while some brave soul disarmed it.

I was thinking about why bad things happen to good people.  I don't know.  Nobody does.  But in 1 Corinthians 3: 10, (My interpretation)  "Nothing will happen to you that hasn't happened to someone else.  But God is faithful and will not let any problem that befalls you be more than you can bear."

It's a promise.  God guarantees it.  Whether it is a child who dies or an A-bomb falls on you, God is there and will get you through it.

I had started a long journey to self discovery after my little girl died.  I was about to find out what I was made of.

It was nineteen sixty one.   I had been married five years and made ten moves.

Ken made Major, which was a really big deal, and started Junior School at Quantico.  With his promotion, we finally had the money to buy another car.  I had been house bound for five years.

Our eldest, Pat, started preschool.  And Becky and I traveled the back roads of Virginia visiting antique stores, flea markets and yard sales.  Virginia was shutting down at the time and all the big estates couldn't afford to hire help.  They were getting rid of so much stuff it was unbelievable.   I had a car, some time, and finally a few extra dollars to spend.  Time was the problem.  I had never had enough of it and now I had to fill it up.  I had planned to spend the year taking care of a new baby.  I was at a loss as to what to do with myself.  I carried a broken heart.  I'll tell you about how I healed some day soon.

Ken was very smart.  He sailed through French and all the other subjects.  One night when he was over half way through his courses, he was typing, no, pecking--he couldn't type.  It was two in the morning.  Peck, peck, peck.  So I got up, went in where he was, moved him over and started typing.

"You didn't ever tell me you could type!!!!", he exclaimed.  "I can't believe you didn't tell me!!!  I've been pecking at this thing for weeks and weeks doing my homework and you never took pity on me!!"
"I love you," I told him.  "But if you and I didn't need some sleep, you still wouldn't know."

He was so happy to have me type, he forgot he was mad.  Ephesians 4:26  (My translation--King James is difficult to understand.)  "If you are angry, don't sin: don't let the sun go down on your wrath."

Ken's best quality was that he never, never, never complained.  He just put one foot in front of the other and kept going.  He always made the best of things.

My guilt overwhelmed me.  I hadn't wanted a baby for nine months.  But when she was born, I was thrilled.  She was wonderful.   So Pretty.  So Sweet.  When she was gone, I was broken.  How could I not think that God was punishing me for my attitude toward his gift of life.  Where had my trust been?  Why hadn't I just accepted  being pregnant and trusted God's will?  The only answer I can come up with is that I had a lesson to learn.

Matthew 19:14  "…Jesus said, suffer (let) the little children to come to me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven."
Of such….is the kingdom of heaven.  I knew where she was, I just didn't know why.

Ken had been rocking her and she was fussy for the first time, "Maybe she would do better in her bed?"
"Ok, I'll fix a bottle."  It took five minutes.  She just quit breathing.  In 1961 doctors didn't have a name for that.  We buried her at Arlington National Cemetery.

Why do terrible things happen?  I think that as far as God was concerned, our little girl had been sent to do a work in both Ken's life and my life.  And she completed her life's purpose in nine days.  We were never the same.  "I expected to be killed in combat, or some air accident," Ken said.  "Why wasn't it me?"  I had never seen him weep.  It was an entirely new side of him that I hadn't known existed.

There is no answer to a question like that.  Except that God wasn't through with him yet.  And for sure God wasn't through with me.  I had a lot to learn.

I took down the baby crib, put away the baby clothes and started the next chapter.

Her name was Amy.

And within three months, I was pregnant.  All of the medical knowledge in the world didn't seem to work for us.  And we weren't even Catholic.

Ken took it in stride.  "It will be alright," he told me.
"You haven't spent the last thirteen months with two babies in diapers," I replied.  I was devastated.  Totally and completely crushed.

When I was eight and a half months pregnant, we moved again.  The military moves you once to a new station, if you find a better place to live, that move is on you.  Ken and I packed up, loaded  everything on a borrowed pickup and moved closer to base.  We broke couple of things on the road, but nothing duck tape and shoe polish couldn't fix.

I painted the entire house, even the ceilings.  Standing on a ladder.  I got all the boxes unpacked and everything put away, and then went into labor.  A little girl.  Almost nine pounds.  Perfect.  You know how it goes, they arrive and you can't remember what the problem was.  She was like a little toy doll to the other two girls.  We loved her.  She fit right in.  For nine days.  And then she died.

Heb. 4:12  "For the word of God is quick, and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."  The Bible changes us.

I guess by now you know that I have a deep attachment to the Bible.  The verses are so uplifting.  They are so encouraging and full of life and love.  It is such a blessing to know that God loves us and is on our side, trying to get us through all the troubles that come our way.  If it weren't for a lifetime  of memorizing verses, I don't think I would have made it through the first seven years of married life.  But I was intent on doing God's will, so I just kept on keeping on.  God loved me.  Ken loved me.

I moved four times during the thirteen months that Ken was gone.  I ended up leaving Oklahoma and driving back to California, going just north of San Francisco to Hayward to stay with his folks.  I was so broke.  Ken sent all his pay home, but there was never enough.  Yes, I drove with two babies.  I did it in two days.  I must have been nuts.  I stopped for gas.  We ate peanut butter sandwiches that I made before we left.

There was no money for phone calls.  No such thing as a cell phone.  No such thing as a computer, or e-mail.  We wrote.  A few weeks ago, I was cleaning out some things in the garage and found his letters.  He wrote faithfully.  I am going to read them again.   Someday.

When the thirteen months were over, I picked him up at the airport with one arm extended.  "No more babies," I told him.  "No more."  He picked me up and kissed me and everyone coming off the plane clapped and cheered.  The Marine returns to his family.

His orders were to Quantico, Virginia.  Moving.  Always moving.

He had to get a certain number of hours flying every month to stay qualified.  Of course he was up there somewhere, at night, when I had our daughter.  I don't remember how I got to the hospital.  I do remember how alone I was.  And everything that could go wrong went wrong.

But things began to look up.  Ken got orders again.  To a squadron at El Toro.  He was thrilled.  I was glad to get off that hill.  This was my fourth move in two years.  It was a sign of things to come.  We made nineteen moves in fifteen years.  Some together, some not.  You could never really get moved in before you moved out again.  It ate up every dime you had so we were always broke.

The plane he was flying was a triangle--I think it was an F4D.  They called it the widow-maker.  Ken said it was like riding a rocket.  You went from ground zero to altitude in seconds.  Problem was that when you got there, you were out of gas.  One year later, he took the entire squadron aboard the carrier and in the two weeks they were qualifying landings, they destroyed four air-craft, broke one pilot's back and killed another.  And then the entire squadron got orders to Japan, or Okinawa--I don't remember.  Somewhere far away.

By then we had another daughter.  Both in diapers when he left.  I was twenty-one and on my way back to Oklahoma for thirteen months.  Not the same girl.  Wiser.  And learning about what real love looked like.

The squadron was tasked with intercepting anything that penetrated the Russian border heading South. Ken said the Migs would test them, they would intercept, fly up along side them and give them the finger--just to say,"See, we are faster and quicker than you are."  Not a very Christian communication, but effective? Then everyone would go home with a clearer knowledge of what the other side could do.

Marriage is a funny thing.  Two people living in two separate worlds trying to figure out what "together" means.  Ken had it all.  A fabulous career flying with an elite group of Marines.  Lots and lots of friends, a Jaguar XK-something or other baby blue convertible, and the woman he had picked out and worked so hard win.

I had no career, no car, and was alone most of the time.  My future was secure--he was certainly going to take care of me, but I didn't know who I was.  And before I could figure it out, he had orders and I was pregnant.

I was reading in Numbers last night about all the rules and commandments that God gave Moses for people to live by.  People do need guidelines or the social structure falls apart.  Marriages fall apart.

Num. 30:16 "These are the statutes, which the Lord commanded Moses, between a man and his wife, between the father and his daughter, being yet a youth in her father's  house."
 
I had been a youth in my father's house, and now I was a youth in my husband's house.  And whatever statutes there were for me to learn, I hadn't learned yet.

Ken had orders to Camp Pendleton, California.  Air Officer for the seventh Regiment.  He was not particularly happy about that.  He wanted to be in a squadron.  Flying.  Now he was assigned to a regiment of "Ground Pounders," helping them learn how to use air support.

We moved into a house on base on top of a hill at the end of nowhere.  It's a good thing that I am a very cheerful kind of person.  It's also good that I'm a "never give up" kind of person.  Because even though I was pretty miserable, the worst was that Ken didn't want to be there either.  

I had promised my mom and dad that if we got married in August, I would start college in September in Pensacola.  I fully intended to do that, but when the time came, the logistics of getting there overwhelmed me.  The emotion I felt was relief--I didn't want to go anyway.  By January, I was starting to get the hang of housework.  I could do a couple of things with hamburger.  And I had reassessed my clothing.  My clothes weren't working in this new adult world.  Everything I owned was fluffy.  All the women I had met were at least ten years older than me.  Most had two or three kids.  I was an alien.  What does an eighteen year old girl talk to older women about?

My job helped, but it was boring.  I posted offerings at a local church--open an envelope, write it down. My only salvation was that I could sew.  So I started making a new wardrobe.  Straight skirts.  (Mine were all gathered with can-cans.)  Blouses--no fluff, no ruffles.   At least I would look like an adult.

Ken and I were living in two different worlds that intersected occasionally in the evenings--if he wasn't catching up on night time.  They had to fly nights for a certain number of hours each month to stay qualified.

Single seat aircraft, military, supersonic, weren't all that safe.  The things they did weren't safe.  People got killed.  I dealt with it by sticking my head in the ground.   I never saw him fly.  He left for work, he came home.  That was good enough for me.  He would come home from work and share something about his day, I would share something about mine.  His was fantasy, mine was real.  He lived in a story book with an entire cast of dare-devils who had adventures and excitement.

Eph. 5:25, 28a  "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it.  So ought men to love their wives…."

It was the thing that made it all worth it.  He loved me.  There was never any doubt about that.

I am moving on from James to Ephesians.  Eph. 4:32 "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you."

When you teach cadets to land on a carrier, you first teach them to hook wire on a runway on the ground.  Over and over until they get it right.  The most difficult aspect is keeping them from killing you.  Ken still holds the record for the largest midair in the training command.  

When you are flying formation with four aircraft, there is a pattern to follow.  The first man in the slot can't slow down or the second will run into him.  You have to break away, not slow down.  Ken's flight of four cadets forgot.  The first man slowed down, the second ran into him,  then banked to his right hitting the third man who rolled into the fourth.  "Bam, bam, bam, bam," is what Ken said.  "I thought I had just seen four cadets kill themselves.  If it had been me," he said, "I would have died of a heart attack on the spot."

"They all landed.  You can't kill a cadet," he said.  "They don't have enough sense to know you can't land an airplane in the condition their's were in."

Like I said, the most difficult aspect is to keep them from killing you.  Ken was really shaken when he got home that evening.  "I have to go out there tomorrow, stand on the runway with paddles giving them signals and hope they don't run into me or break a wire."

I don't think those four cadets ever knew how lucky they were to have a kind, tenderhearted, forgiving instructor like Ken.

I was very gullible.  He could have told me anything and I would have believed it.  Ken said he wouldn't tease me again and for 57 years, he never did.

But it was a football medal.  When Korea was brewing and rumbling, the draft was instituted and many of the pro football players chose to go to flight school.  There were so many of them, that they decided to form a football team.  The Pensacola Goslings.  They had everything they needed except a halfback. One of them had heard that Ken had made all state as a half back so they asked him to join them.  "I told them," Ken said, "I'll get killed.  You guys are out of my league.  I only weigh 160."

"Get behind that All-American center, just stay behind him.  We'll take care of you."  I guess they did.  They beat Army, Navy, West Point and I don't know who all else and Ken made many of the touchdowns.  So he got a medal.  But it definitely wasn't the Congressional Medal of Honor.

He later told me that some of the guys he played with were really special.  James Stockdale ended up as  a prisoner of war in Vietnam.  He was the senior captive at Hanoi Hilton.  He also was a vice presidential candidate.  There were others.  Too many stories to tell.  Ken seemed to have a way of ending up on the cutting edge of what was going on in the world.

When he graduated from flight school, he and one other man in his class were chosen to go to jet training.  The first class of  Naval jet aviation since WWII.  And I don't even know if they had formal Jet training in WWII.  It was a good thing because the rest of his class went to Korea and over half of them were dead before the year was up.  So the commandant of the Marine Corps issued an order that no new cadet who got their wings could go until he had a year of training state side.  Ken was ordered to join the Seattle Reserves.  All of them were WWII veterans. "They taught me to fly," Ken told me.  "They broke all the rules.  They wanted to live, do their year and go home.  I was the only second Lt. in the squadron.  I probably owe them my life.  When I got to the war, I was ahead of the game."