Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there.  

        --Tom Joad, The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

My brother, David Dries, went to Vietnam in 1965. Eight years earlier I had become legal guardian of David, his twin, Dennis, and another brother, Danny, after our widowed mother died. As surrogate mother, I was distressed and worried when I learned David was going to a war zone. Newly-married and expecting a child, I had a greater understanding of motherhood than I'd had years earlier.

David had been an easily frightened child, fleeing anything that made noise: airplanes, barber's clippers, even the food mixer. He outgrew those fears; his military record speaks for itself, as do his later years spent tilting at windmills, public and personal. He went off to war a boy, irresponsible and naive. He came home a man; older than his years, seemingly burdened by what he'd participated in and witnessed. His soft gray eyes registered a sad and frightened look. Like many Vietnam veterans, David didn't tell war stories. Even his closest friend did not know that David earned the Bronze Star.

David's death in 1996, at age fifty, stunned family and friends. Five months earlier, our family had gathered for our oldest brother's funeral. David had been unable to attend; now he was gone, leaving us wondering about many aspects of his brief life. Because of his reluctance to discuss the war, we have only scant information about what he did to merit the Bronze Star. The following is from a letter written by R.G. Rettie, LTC, AGC, Adjutant General, 30 September, 1966:

"Specialist David P. Dries contributed to the counterinsurgency effort by actively participating in numerous reconnaissance and night ambush patrols. On several occasions, while being subjected to fire, he coolly performed with the poise and competence of a line soldier. For his service in the Republic of Vietnam, Specialist Dries has been recommended for the Bronze Star for meritorious service."

My brother, Daryl, recalls David's terse reply when asked about the medal. "He told me he stayed behind and lay down covering fire while the rest of his group retreated. As we all know, David was not a big man, physically, but he must have had heart and guts to spare."

When we sorted David's belongings, conspicuous by their absence were the Bronze Star and other medals. We did find a lapel pin for Vietnam Veterans Against The War. We don't know if David lost his medals during his years moving around, or if he discarded them in protest. I've had them reissued, for his daughter. If David was involved with VVAW, it was a position taken after his return from Vietnam. Excerpts from letters indicate he supported the war while he was serving.

November 1, 1965: I really don't know what to think of all the anti-and pro-demonstrations going on in the U.S. I certainly hope the draft-card burners get to the top of the draft list.

December 16, 1965: I have two opinions on the war, depending on the mood I'm in. When I start thinking about home, a girl, music, a soft chair, showers, civilian clothes, good food and American people, I feel it isn't worth one single American life. Then I look around and see these pathetic people living in thatched-roofed houses filled with mud and dirt, children running around without clothes, little food, nothing really to look forward to if it wasn't for us, and I feel pride and admiration. I don't think it's a war against aggression because ultimately we will win. I feel it's a war against poverty, misery, disease, hardship, but mostly a war against the present, today. I actually feel better when I read in the paper that one of our Infantry units just completed building a school in Bien Hoa or a church in Thu Duc, than I do when I read where they killed 250 VC at Ben Cat. Yes, I'm glad we're here and I wish there were more here, at least 300,000. It's worse than what's published in the newspapers, there are no safe places. A VC could walk into our tent right now and throw a bomb and 4 Americans would be dead, including the Division Adjutant General, but mostly, ol' number one. In summary, I'm glad I'm here, I'm glad the division is here, I wish more people were, and I'm counting the days 'til I get home.

January 28, 1966: I don't know whether you'll like it or not, but volunteers from 1st Admin Co are going to make a sweep outside our perimeter within the next week and I volunteered. About a third of the company volunteered. We're going out to look for VC mainly. We'll probably not find any but I'm sure we'll run into some type of booby trap. I had to do it once and get it out of my system, then I'll sink back behind my typewriter.

That could be the patrol on which David put his life on the line. His later change of opinion on the war is revealed in these lines from a poem written in 1983:

She asks me why I would object to a pledge of allegiance in school.
She's too young to know or even care, but to stand alone would not be cool.
One day she'll learn some history that won't be taught in schools.
She'll come to see the treachery of those lessons taught by fools.
A panorama of shame and infamy as I grew into an adult, that stretches
from November sixty-three and the lies in the Tonkin Sea, that sent me to war,
an LBJ/Pentagon deceit that brought thousands home in boxes.

I can only speculate on why David didn't discuss the war. Perhaps he'd been scorned for his involvement. Silence might have been the path of least resistance, easier than defending himself or having a confrontation with those who had not been there but thought they had all the answers. Maybe there were no adequate words to explain the experience, or he had not sorted out ambivalent feelings. Perhaps it was too painful to relive in the telling. World War II veterans still weep when they discuss battles fought more than fifty years ago.

For Vietnam veterans, the memorial in Washington, DC is their wailing wall, their place to seek reconciliation and peace. David never had an opportunity to see the memorial. I don't know how he felt about the structure; perhaps he would not have wanted to see it.

After his discharge, David attended Monterey (CA) Peninsula College and Adams State College (CO), earning a degree in American Studies. He campaigned for Robert Kennedy, and was so devastated by Kennedy's death that he contemplated moving to Australia. After we discussed it by letter, he decided to stay here and turn his anger into something constructive. In 1969, he joined VISTA and was assigned to the Colorado Migrant Council. In 1971 he was dismissed from VISTA for "obvious and blatant political activity," but was immediately hired as Program Director of the Monte Vista, Colorado, Head Start program. Later employment included Field Organizer for the United Farm Workers in their successful effort to unionize migrant farm laborers; Adult Education teacher; Ramsey Action Programs; St. Paul (MN) Coalition For The Homeless; and SHARE Development Coordinator for Denver Catholic Community Services. 

I believe David's career and his passive-resistant demeanor were fueled by lessons learned in Vietnam; not so much an epiphany as a gradual, profound realization of what he had experienced. His comment in the letter about building schools and churches, and his empathy for the innocent Vietnamese people indicate some of what gave him a commitment against poverty, homelessness, and other ills of American society, as he perceived them. His car carried a bumper sticker reading: If you want peace, work for justice.

David was not a church-goer; he began skipping Sunday Mass as a teenager. I have no knowledge of his belief or disbelief in God, but I suspect he whispered a prayer or two during his war tour. It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes. David's religion manifested itself in his compassion for his fellowman. Perhaps his work was an act of contrition for what he believed were governmental or personal sins committed against a country and its people.

Architect Mies Van der Rohe wrote, "God is in the details." For David, tending to the details of his chosen work played havoc with his health and personal life. A smoker since youth, he also drank too much. Occasionally burned-out and frustrated with bureaucracy, he slipped into periods of reclusiveness, dead-end jobs, and irresponsibility. Ultimately, his marriage ended but he remained devoted to his daughter, Rosie, and stepdaughter, Penny.

Shortly before David's death, he was diagnosed with Gullain-Barre syndrome. G-B has been linked to Agent Orange, pesticides, and chemicals in house paint, all of which David was exposed to during the past three decades. But his death resulted from neglecting preventive measures that might have lessened his risk of hereditary heart disease. As it took its toll, my brother, Gary, characterized David as, "The once vigorous street warrior, old and weary before his time, a life in neutral. The caretaker to Colorado's needy, falling through the cracks, unnoticed."

If we failed to notice his decline, it was because David's quiet manner seemed a request for privacy. He welcomed letters and phone calls but seldom initiated either, leading siblings and friends to think we didn't know him well. His friend Eva said, "David was a mystery. We all knew some things about him but none of us knew everything." 

In retrospect, he wasn't a mystery at all. Gather all the things we each know and a distinct picture emerges. Speaking at David's service in Denver, Gary said, "I sometimes thought I didn't know him, but that says more about me than him. He told me who he was, in words and deeds. The paintings he left are awash with color, soft, warm, gentle, hopeful, confident. The voice muted, but the spirit in transition, alive, on paper, on canvas, and in the lives of those he touched."

I knew the teenaged David, an unmotivated student, fun-loving, reckless, getting into trouble, but generally respectful of a guardian only ten years his senior. Now, rereading his letters from Vietnam, I discover a young man who was intelligent, articulate, witty, insightful, and already introspective about his youth. He once wrote, "I feel ashamed when I think about my drunken escapades. I don't know what to say except, I'm sorry." 

We know that David once organized a drive to collect school supplies for Eritrean children. In his appeal he wrote, "Perhaps the pencil you provide will be the one that allows a child to write a first poem, or design an irrigation system."

We know that David had character weaknesses. Dennis, who had a birth bond with David, said, "There were flaws, but I believe the good he did outweighed the damage, if any, by a great percentage."

We know David through his friends. David O. Van Ness wrote in his St. Paul newspaper column: "Whatever he sets out to do, he does in his quiet confident manner. Dave is unlike many I've met in that he speaks very little, especially about himself. I once labeled him a word economizer. His poetry fascinates me and I admire his writing talent and ability."

David's poetry: serious, humorous, tender, loving, sarcastic, and vitriolic, tells us what was important to him and what was not. Regarding fatherhood at age thirty-six, he chronicled his rollercoaster ride through life, part of which read:

Oh, yes, what a journey it's been,
O'er countless forgotten miles,
Of back roads and dirt roads,
Alleyways and wrong turns,
Losing speed on a highway of trials.

Now the day has come at last,
And indeed it's sunny weather,
For a baby was born of her mother today,
And that baby gave birth to a father.

He penned odes to his wife and daughters, and to the sister who saw him through adolescence. He conveyed scant memories of the father who died when David and his twin were seven. He ranted against the excess of material things, and extolled Colorado's beauty:

It's a sunrise over the Sangre de Christos,
A mile-high state of mind,
A wild river flowing from the heart,
A breathless vista into the soul.

In a poem his daughter didn't see until after his death, David came to an acceptance that Rosie was putting away the things of a child, slipping into adolescence. Using metaphors that relate to her name and to her gymnastics skill, he wrote:

The child in her blossoms
Into a Rose of brightness and beauty.
A stem of grace, petals of charm,
The child in her now possesses some essentials to living.
She vaults over obstacles, she balances on moonbeams,
She dances the floor to her own music.

We know David enjoyed music, reading, painting, fishing, gardening, and cooking (his beef burritos were legendary). We know that for years he'd kept a bedraggled stuffed pink bear, but no one knows its significance (it was cremated with him). We know his favorite fishing hole was the headwaters of the Rio Grande in the San Juan mountains of southwest Colorado. This is the place he chose, several years before his death, for his ashes to be placed. In a letter to the family he wrote: "It's one of the most beautiful spots I know. So if you want to visit my headstone, you'd better bring a tent, some warm clothes and your fishing pole. Second thought, you won't need a pole, just whistle and those rainbow trout will jump into your lap."

We know that David had devoted friends. Most of those who gathered in the valley to commit him to the river that cold, rainy July morning were from his VISTA days; co-workers as well as people he had aided in some way. My brother, Daryl, wrote these words for family members unable to attend:

"Arriving at the site David selected, we agreed it's a beautiful spot to spend eternity. Facing the water, off to the left, rises a mountain several hundred feet high. In my mind it will always be Mt. David. By the end of the afternoon we numbered about twenty-five. I couldn't believe so many people, not relatives, would travel so far and take the time to honor David's memory one final time. He was well-loved and respected by his friends.

"David's best fried, Jim Zapf, read some of David's poems through a great many tears. After the scattering of ashes, Jim remarked, "Well, David, there you are. Fish all you want and write your poems," then he quickly walked away.

"Getting ready to leave, and shaking hands with everyone, David's friend, Dickie, hugged me. This is the only time in my life I have been hugged for no other reason than being David's brother. He had great friends and I'll not soon forget them. In the months and years ahead, the family can be comforted by the thought that David's spirit soars high in the San Juan mountains, near a place where people who truly loved our brother will visit." 

Some of David's ashes were also scattered over his parents' graves in Iowa, and at Arlington National Cemetery.

It's difficult to sum up a life in a few words, but two people did it succinctly at David's service in Denver. Gary said, "Although fifty may not seem like a long life, if you do it right that should be long enough. David did it right." 

When David's former wife, Lucinda, who arranged the service, asked if anyone else would like to speak, a young woman stepped forward. No one seemed to know who she was, but with her voice breaking, she said, "I didn't know David well, but he seemed so kind."

I can't think of a nicer way to be remembered. Ironically, I believe David learned about kindness through witnessing and participating in one of the unkindest acts known to man...war.