Blog 2579 – 11.20.2022

Birthday Memories

Fifty-two years ago I was about to turn twenty, half a world away from home. I was one of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines who spent a birthday in South Vietnam. Bobby Vinton’s song Lonely Soldier describes what it was like to be a lonely soldier away from home. The song attachment at the end of today’s blog has a couple of voice overs, letters to a soldier in Kuwait. That war too seems like ancient history. Soldiers on distant battlefields have always wanted one thing even more that victory and that is to return home to loved ones waiting.

When I met and wooed my last lovely and loving wife, Linda Lee Stokes, I told her about my first little wife, Barbara, that found comfort in another’s arms while I was away in Vietnam and did not even extend to me the courtesy of a Dear John letter. She just stopped answering my letters four months before I was due to return. It was a heartbreaking time in my life. Linda said, “I wish I had known you then, I would have waited for you, and I would have written.” I believe she would have too.

I whispered in her ear this morning, “Next time I aim to find you sooner and love you longer.” So be it, and may it be so – Ah, Man and Aye Women.

Your friend and fellow travel,

Once a lonely soldier away from home, but no more,

David White

Bobby Vinton Mr.Lonely (Letter To A Soldier)

P.S. Linda has aways made a big deal of my birthdays, in her wonderful way making up for my loneliest birthday.