Memorial Day Tribute

Below is an article written by Kathleen Schongar who graduated from Catholic Central in 1971.  She is the sister of Mike and Tim Schongar classmates of ours.  The article appeared in the Times Union Saturday, May 23, 2009. 

From Lansingburgh to Vietnam

Remembering 3 young lives cut so tragically short

By KATHLEEN SCHONGAR
First published in print: Saturday, May 23, 2009

Paul Baker, Ray Tymeson and Pete Guenette were boyhood friends. They were neighbors, school mates and Little League buddies. Baby boomers, proud sons of Lansingburgh all, these children of the Cold War era stand together still. White names etched in a massive wall of black that pays tribute to all the brave souls who gave their lives in Vietnam.

They seemed old to us who were just out of grade school. Now they seem so very young. Young men in their prime, old enough to drive, to drink and to die in service to the nation. They were not yet old enough to vote.

How time alters our perspective. These friends never enjoyed the Age of Aquarius, never saw man walk on the moon, never saw the Berlin Wall come down. For them, personal computers and cell phones with pictures existed only in comic books. There was no World Trade Center.

Today, those who stand at the Wall in Washington reading the names of their young friends do so with reverence. There is an abundance of pride and a compounded sense of sadness, for our faces reflect the passage of years, in contrast to their eternal youth. Only as we grew to maturity could we begin to understand the true value of their sacrifice in our name.

While we sat safely in our classrooms, they waded through rice paddies. We saw the world transformed in ways they could never have imagined. While they rested in honored silence in cemeteries overlooking the Hudson River, we earned diplomas and had careers and families.

We lived the dream. Only after seeing what we have gained, can we fully appreciate the void the absence of each of them leaves in our lives. So much potential lost.

Ray, Paul and Pete were all regular kids from the neighborhood. Life revolved around family, church, school and the 112th Street Park. All went to Catholic Central High School, where courage, constancy, honor and sacrifice were more than words in a school song. They were words to live by and ideals to die for.

Pete lived less than a stone's throw from our house. He was my brother Tim's best friend, the skinny kid who played ball and shared the usual adventures and pranks of adolescence, would become a national hero on May 18, 1968. Under fire in Quan Tan Uyen Province, Pete smothered a grenade with his body, saving at least three lives. For his courage and selflessness, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. He was 20 years old. Lansingburgh was very proud, but profoundly sad. In less than 11 months we buried three of our best and brightest.

The casualties on the nightly news were our friends. So our generation came to understand the tremendous cost of war, the price of freedom.

It is a lesson every generation must learn. It is our responsibility to pass on the legacy of the three who gave their lives for us. We must never forget.

As we look at the gray-haired reflections at the Wall, or in our own mirrors, let us be grateful for the sacrifices of Pete, Paul and Ray and all who have died in uniform. Let us support the men and women currently serving our nation with distinction.

This weekend, let us honor the fallen, as they say in song, by teaching our children well to study war no more.

Through our words and examples, may we teach them to tear down the walls of hatred and mistrust, building in their place a bridge that will bring us closer to a time when a just and lasting peace will guide the planet.

Kathleen Schongar is a special education teacher at the May School at St. Catherine's Center for Children and a published poet. She lives in Albany.

This is the first of several Memorial Day essays from Capital Region writers. Others will appear on Sunday and Monday.