Bob didn't come to the 20th reunion and he was one of my closest friends. So I looked him up, found he was in the Rochester area and went over to see him.
In RHS he was a happy-go-lucky kid who harassed me goodnaturedly about my being a Democrat (nearly everybody did in those days). We argued politics and shared interests in the social sciences. We both went on to major in psychology in college.
The guy I met 20 years on from graduation was as far away from that as the 12 hour nite-to-day time difference from Saigon to Detroit. He'd been a medic in Vietnam and came home deeply scared and hardened. His wife told stories about the difference between him pre and post army: his hitting the dirt when they fired a cannon at reveilee at camp in Georgia after his return stateside, his not wanting to turn his back to the oriental people in a Chinese restaurant and nsisting he sit in a corner where he could watch their movements. She seemed to regard him with careful, anxious protectiveness.
I never saw him again but read in a classmate's information sheet that he had moved to Indiana, I believe.
I hope he has found the peace now he didn't have in life.
Gary Salk
Bob didn't come to the 20th reunion and he was one of my closest friends. So I looked him up, found he was in the Rochester area and went over to see him.
In RHS he was a happy-go-lucky kid who harassed me goodnaturedly about my being a Democrat (nearly everybody did in those days). We argued politics and shared interests in the social sciences. We both went on to major in psychology in college.
The guy I met 20 years on from graduation was as far away from that as the 12 hour nite-to-day time difference from Saigon to Detroit. He'd been a medic in Vietnam and came home deeply scared and hardened. His wife told stories about the difference between him pre and post army: his hitting the dirt when they fired a cannon at reveilee at camp in Georgia after his return stateside, his not wanting to turn his back to the oriental people in a Chinese restaurant and nsisting he sit in a corner where he could watch their movements. She seemed to regard him with careful, anxious protectiveness.
I never saw him again but read in a classmate's information sheet that he had moved to Indiana, I believe.
I hope he has found the peace now he didn't have in life.