First in a two-part seriesWhen the war in Vietnam was being fought, I was just finishing high school and starting college. I was registered for the draft in 1967, but was deferred as a full-time student. Everyone in my age group knew someone who either enlisted or was drafted into military service. Freddy Christman was the friend and classmate from Boyden High School I knew best who served in Vietnam. It seemed as if one minute we were all just kids hanging around the little league baseball park on Mahaley Avenue or at Blackwelder’s BBQ, and the next minute Freddy was over there flying helicopters.
As the number of our servicemen who were captured and/or missing in action grew, a lot of us who did not go to Vietnam acquired POW/MIA bracelets to remember them and to show our support for their families hoping for their safe return. Each one of those bracelets bore the name, rank, and date gone missing or captured of one of our guys who was lost over there. I got a bracelet with the name, Maj. Paul Getchell, and the date, 1-13-69, when I was a freshman at Western Carolina in 1969.
My friend, Freddy, was missing in action in Vietnam, but I was never able to get a bracelet with his name, so whenever I saw my bracelet, I thought of him and his family just the same. When the war was finally over and our prisoners of war were returned to the United States in 1973, a large number ó too large a number ó of our guys were not accounted for or returned. Maj. Paul Getchell was among those not accounted for. Freddy was too.
I continued to wear the POW/MIA bracelet, hoping and praying that some word of their fate would be known, just as I’m sure the families of all of those others who were unaccounted for were doing. I would watch for articles in the paper and later check the Internet. There are teams of folks looking for clues to the fate of our missing guys in Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and China, and occasionally the remains of one of our lost servicemen will be found, identified and returned to the U.S. and buried with honor ó 909 so far.
Friday: The rest of the story
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Hap Alexander lives in Topsail Beach.