SwiftVets.com

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Karen Zacharias wrote:
http://www.heromama.org/biography/

Hope your home is filled with raucous merriment this Holiday Season and throughout the coming year. And the next time
you find yourself craving a good belly laugh, pick up a copy of HERO MAMA. The Widow Spears always manages to get
our gang a' giggling.

God Bless, Tim & Karen, Stephan, Shelby, Ashley & Konnie Zacharias.
Oh, and Mama, the culprit behind our merry moments.

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When truth dies in battle- New York Times ~ August 25, 2004
Hermiston, Ore. -
Amid the confusing debate over John Kerry's Vietnam record, one thing is clear: war - particularly the trauma of war - corrodes memory.
My father was killed in Vietnam in 1966, when I was 9. There were two official Army reports regarding his death. One said he was killed by friendly fire. The other claimed he was struck down by enemy fire. Newspaper accounts in the local newspapers (we were living in Tennessee) said my father, a career soldier, a staff sergeant with nearly 20 years of experience, was operating the howitzer that killed him. Then there was a nasty rumor that he had been decapitated.

Several years ago, I set out to see if I could figure out what really happened. I traveled all over the United States and to Vietnam. I gathered documents and conducted interviews. In a remote Kentucky town, I met my father's commanding officer. In Nebraska, I found his gunner. In New Jersey, I discovered the man who had issued the radio call for medical evacuation. In Georgia, I found a private who had been awakened by my father's screams as he bled to death. "It sounded like a wildcat," he recalled. And just when I'd given up on tracking him, the medic who had identified my father's body called me.

Each of these men remembers the events of July 24, 1966 differently. They all agree that not long after 5 a.m. a mortar round exploded in a muddy spot, nobody remembers exactly where, in the Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam's Central Highlands. My father, his commanding officer and a medic were asleep in the same tent; their cots only a few feet apart. All three sustained injuries. The commanding officer was hit with hot shrapnel. "It looked like I'd run through a briarpatch," he said. The medic took a round in his buttocks. The daily log lists the last victim, my father, as "third man down." Bad weather delayed his evacuation. He died long before the chopper arrived.

From then on, though, the stories get convoluted. The commanding officer insisted the mortar round was incoming; so did the sergeant who was outside operating the howitzer for their battery that morning and said he heard the round come in.
But my father's gunner has always insisted that the round came from friendly fire. According to him, the sergeant was conducting routine harassing and interdictory fire that morning. One of the shells misfired and exploded in camp, near my father's tent. This version is supported by several of the men who were in the battery that day.

Rather than clarify matters, the autopsy report created more confusion. It stated that my father had a "possible GSW from back to abdomen." In others words, one former Army mortician explained, "Your father was shot in the back with an M-16." A small wound like that, the mortician insisted, could not have been mistaken for mortar shrapnel. It had to have come from a gunshot at close range. The commanding officer, however, maintained that the wound was the result of flying shrapnel.

I'm not sure I understand the events that led up to my father's death any better today than I did when the young lieutenant in the Army jeep pulled up in front of our home at Slaughter's Trailer Court in Rogersville, Tenn. and started my mother crying. Still, my search wasn't in vain. I learned that my father was a good soldier, well-loved and respected by those who fought alongside him.

"There's nobody I'd have rather have gone to war with," said Gary Catlett, my father's driver, whom I tracked down in California. "He was so confident. He had experience. He was the kind of guy that could walk through a minefield and have mines exploding all around him and he'd still be calm. He knew how to keep morale up. We respected him."

So, then, what about John Kerry and the Swift boat crew? Enough already. There are some things we'll never know. But there are also some things that are beyond dispute - even in the chaos of war. Mr. Kerry went. He served. Lucky for him, he got to come home and raise his daughters.

Our Own Worst Enemy- September 1, 2004
Step inside the front door of my home and the first thing you notice is a black-and-white photo of my father. He's wearing a cocky grin and a machine gun hoisted over his shoulder. He's got an electric strawberry Infantry patch sewn in one sleeve and his name stenciled in black over a pocket.
The second-thing you'll notice is the black-and-white etching above the snapshot. A girlfriend made it for me while she was visiting the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. Dad's name is smack dab in the middle of Panel 9 East. That black marble slab is the only place where I can go to see my father eye-to-eye.

This front-door welcome is my not-so-subtle way of reminding every person who enters my home that freedom is a precious gift paid for with the blood sacrifice of soldiers like my father. Because I understand the cost of freedom, I value living in a democracy. I don't get riled up over which candidate people vote for - I just want them to vote. I applaud the fact that we live in a country where anti-war protestors and gay rights advocates can march the streets of Portland or San Francisco. I appreciate living in a country where newspapers actually pay me to express my opinion.

Freedom of speech is an indulgence that I cannot afford to live without. So I hesitate to deny it to anyone else.

But two incidents from this past week have left me reeling. Seems dozens of folks carried flag-draped coffins through the streets of New York City during an anti-Bush march as a means of protesting the war in Iraq. That was followed by a group of GOP attendees slapping on Purple Heart Band-Aids as a means of belittling the medals Kerry was awarded for his military service.

As the daughter of a Vietnam veteran killed in action, I am appalled by the banality of such actions. It troubles me to no end that the freedoms my father and the millions like him died for would be abused and exploited in such a foul fashion. Mockery is a pathetically poor way to make a partisan point. It is the lowest form of communication - any idiot can do it.

It's long been true that people often demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. I can't wait for this election to be over. And, no, I don't really care which man wins. With such reckless, crude behavior emanating from both camps, it appears we're a nation full of spiteful losers.

C'mon people. If we can't behave better than this, we won't have to worry about threats from afar.

We're fast becoming our own worst enemy.

PEACE ON EARTH -- More Than A Holiday Greeting- December 20, 2004
Recent news reports estimate nearly 900 U.S. children have lost a parent in the war in Iraq. One of the realities of an all-volunteer military is that more Americans in uniform are likely to be married and have children than soldiers from the Vietnam era.
"This is a new state of affairs we have to confront," said Charles Moskos, a leading military sociologist and Northwestern University professor.
Such headlines herald me back to the Christmas Season of 1965 - the year my own father went to war. Don't ask me why his deployment took place during the holidays. There's a lot about military policy that befuddles me. There isn't much that I remember about that last festive celebration with my father before he was slain in Vietnam. I can't remember whether we ate a ham or turkey or a can of Spam. We were living on Oahu; Spam was a popular dinner choice on a GI's grocery budget.

What I can remember with an aching clarity, however, was Christmas Day itself. My older brother, Frankie, 11, got me out of bed before Mama and our baby sister Linda woke. There wasn't anything for us to do. No presents to unwrap. No stockings to unstuff. No cookies to nibble. No motor cars to rumble around the living room. No Slinkies to coil down the stairs.

So we went for a walk in the cul-de-sac. Frankie said it sure didn't feel much like Christmas. I nodded in agreement. Eyeing a decorated tree in the window of a neighboring house, we stood still. A young man opened his front door. His wife stood behind him. He asked Frankie what we were doing out so early on Christmas morning. Why weren't we at home, opening gifts from Santa.

Frankie said we didn't have any gifts to open.

"Daddy left for Vietnam," Frankie explained. "Santa came to our house early."

A shadow fell across the young man's face. I knew from his haircut that he was a soldier, too. "Would you like to come inside and share our Christmas with us?" he asked.

Frankie and I looked at each other. We knew Mama wouldn't approve, but we were both so lonesome that we didn't give her another thought. Besides we needed some proof that this really was Christmas Day and not just another day without Daddy.

We watched and giggled as the couple's year-old daughter eagerly tore through the silver-wrapping and red bows. It didn't bother us one bit to watch another kid open all the presents under the tree. We were content, even happy, to be part of that merry event -- a baby's first Christmas.

Not a holiday season goes by that I don't recall that young family and the priceless treasure they bestowed upon Frankie and me that morning - the gift of hospitality.

It's the one gift that I cherish more with each passing year.

Especially now that we are at war again. I grow sad thinking of all those children who will be spending this Christmas Day without their daddies or their mamas. And my heart is broken for all each and every one of those children whose parent has already died in war. For those families Peace on Earth is more than just a holiday greeting. It's our daily prayer.




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Karen Spears Zacharias's work has won dozens of awards, including the 2002 C.B. Blethen Award for
Distinguished Feature Writing. Nominated for Georgia Author of the Year in 1997 for Benched: The Memoirs
of Judge Rufe McCombs, she has lectured around the country at numerous veterans' events. Her commentary
has appeared in the New York Times, on National Public Radio's All Things Considered and on Oregon Public
Radio and Georgia Public Radio.
She serves on the national advisory board of The Virtual Wall, and is a contributing columnist for Vietnam Veterans
of America magazine, The Veteran, and is a member of Sons & Daughters In Touch, a national organization for adult
children of servicemen killed in Vietnam. She also serves on the National Advisory Board for the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial Center and is on the Board of Directors of the Vietnam Women's Memorial.

http://www.heromama.org/biography/



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Karen Spears Zacharias's HERO MAMA is one of the most original, heartbreaking and off-the-nose books
about the Vietnam experience ever written. It is a relentless narrative, brilliantly written and paced, told by
a daughter whose father was killed in action in Vietnam and the devastating effect it had on the author and
her family. I am giving this book to my two adopted daughters, Jessica and Melissa, whose fighter-pilot father
was killed giving close air support to Marines on the ground in 1968."
Pat Conroy, author of the New York Times bestsellers

MY LOSING SEASON, BEACH MUSIC,

THE PRINCE OF TIDES and THE GREAT SANTINI.

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"Karen Spears Zacharias has written a dead-honest, raw-edged memoir of how the death of her father in
Vietnam changed her life and the lives of everyone around her. Her dad was career Army and a fine soldier.
This wonderfully told story is about a nine-year-old girl who woke up one day without a father, and nothing
was ever quite the same and nothing was ever quite right. It is also about her pursuit of the truth of how her
father died and eventually a trip to Vietnam to let go of the anger at a country and a people."

Joseph L. Galloway, co-author of the New York Times bestseller,

WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE ... AND YOUNG and

TRIUMPH WITHOUT VICTORY: This History of the Persian Gulf War.

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"HERO MAMA is a beautiful and important book about those most important heroes: the ones we don't hear about
on the six o'clock news but go about their feats of courage and tenacity without fanfare. Zacharias tells the moving
story of Vietnam's effects on her family without ever falling into sentimentality or becoming maudlin.

This book thrums with real life and the beating heart of not only her family's history, but everyone's history.

HERO MAMA will stay with me always."

Silas House, author of The COAL TATTOO, PARCHMENT OF LEAVES

and CLAY'S QUILT.