My high school graduating class had its 50threunion about two months ago. I’ve never been to a reunion, high school, or college. I’ve read that graduates are most likely to go to the 50th because they sense this will be the last time they see their classmates.
I only recently found out about the reunion—I had too many changes of address for the invitation to reach me earlier in the year. I visited the reunion website and was immediately drawn to the “missing/deceased” section. I think there were 400 in my graduating class, so I was prepared for a sizeable number of photos (graduation pictures) of the departed. I scrolled through the photos and names, many jarring my memory of a person I hadn’t thought of in 50 years. I wondered how they had lived their lives and how they had died.
There was one exception. He was a close friend who went into the Army and fought in Vietnam. I was drafted in the Army at the same time that he served. We spent some time together after we were back in the civilian world. He wasn’t doing well. One evening we were at a “night club” when he started pounding a juke box with his fist. A decade later this behavior would be labeled PTSD. The club was a mafia-like place. They got that he was a Vietnam vet. We were told to get out and never come back—“don’t even walk by this place.” Yes, sir! They really gave my friend a break since he did damage the juke box.
His hand was bleeding badly. We went to a nearby small hospital but they wouldn’t help him because he didn’t have insurance. I thought the nurse might call the police, but she looked at my friend and maybe she knew about how vets were having a hard time coming home. She gave me some bandages, anti-bacterial cream and basic instructions. I did the best I could.
A few weeks later his parents asked me to keep an eye on him—they were worried about his behavior. We went out for beers a few times– I tried to get through to him, but he said he couldn’t talk about what had happened.
He eventually “stabilized ”and I went my own way—3,000 miles away.
I did an online obituary search and found out he had died recently, leaving a wife and children. This all sounds cold to me. You cry with someone. You feel them suffer. But after a time you both move on and have lives that were never anticipated. You lose touch because to be in touch is to remember a painful time.
For the last four years I’ve been working to help veterans from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan receive their overdue disability benefits and health care treatment. I dedicate each case to my friend. I’ve “solved” a lot of cases, but it doesn’t get rid of the emptiness of a time when my friend wouldn’t accept any help.
I didn’t go to my 50th reunion.
67Steffen.com 
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