Paul and Darlene Murphy
Paul and Darlene Murphy
My daughter, Darlene, did her Army basic at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina, then was stationed at Ft. Eustis, Virginia. She met and married a career man also stationed at Ft. Eustis -- a crew chief and trainer on the Cobras and Apaches.
They were sent to Hawaii for a time. Paul's duty station was Schofield Barracks, but they housed on Wheeler AFB. He TDYed to Korea a couple of times; then they moved back to Ft. Eustis.
War was declared.
I stayed with my daughter and their three children during Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. They lived "right around the corner" from the base -- bought a lovely home right in the woods, so to speak. It's known as the Peninsula of Virginia, where more than 40,000 at one count had gone to DS/DS.
When I took my daughter's oldest child, my oldest granddaughter Jacquelyne, to grade school in the mornings, I would walk out through the halls. They were COVERED -- both sides -- with the writings of the children of those that were at war in Kuwait.
I would go from page to page and read the wisdom and openness of these small children. Each time I went, I tried to hurry through those halls and not read; but my feet had weights and those "Walls" drew me like a magnet. One I HAD to go to each time ended with this line: "Please, Daddy, don't die."
Names on those Walls, too, of Fathers, Mothers, plus the names of their children. I could never reach the front doors of that school without the tears streaming and the rage building. It is coming even now, when I think of it.
Washington, D. C., is not the only place with a Memorial Wall. There are others -- living, breathing testaments to another war.
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