Honoring my personal hero

tlawler

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Today marks the 50th anniversary of the death of my brother, Daniel Howard Lawler 5th Special Forces, in Vietnam. And I'd like to honor him here, where a lot of members are also Vietnam Vets.

Daniel was always a larger than life figure to me. I was only five years old when he was killed and I remember so little about him.
The last time I saw him was when he came home for Christmas of '66 and I remember going with the family down to Homestead AFB to see him off just after New Years '67. One moment that stands out in my mind is at my kindergarten graduation just days after he passed away. It was still unreal to me and I didn't understand death very well at that age. When my name was called to the stage, the person announcing the names added: "And Tom's brother was just killed in Vietnam." I remember thinking that at that point it was real if someone in authority had announced it and I broke down and cried right there at the graduation. My parents didn't talk about it much in the years up to their deaths and I rarely brought it up. My sister's rememberences of him were always of them growing up and little of his time after joining first the Air Force, then transferring to the Army and Special Forces.
I want to thank OLDNAVYMCPO (Jim) for directing me to some websites that shed some light on things I didn't know about Dan.
 

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Fifty years later and we still remember.

July 4, 2017 is the 50th anniversary of the son of friends of my parents being shot down over North Vietnam. He was a naval aviator, and listed as MIA for years and ultimately declared KIA. In late 1986 his remains were returned to the US and the following spring he was laid to rest. He was enough older than me that we weren't close, but I remember following his training closely and wrote to him during his two tours.

Memorial Day is approaching, a day to remember all of the men and women whose lives were lost in service to the US. Sometimes it seems the remembrance is a little generic. Learning about Daniel Lawler in this thread made my thinking about Memorial Day very specific and drove home that each of those men and women was an individual with parents, brothers, sisters, other family members and friends who feel the loss many years later.
 
Dang all this forum and what it brings to people.
Tlawler, I haven't shared the loss you've experienced but
we're close enough of age that I can relate to the confusion
and fear the times brought to those of us old enough to be
aware but too young to understand.


Your post and some insight gained while visiting my mother
over the weekend just brought up a flood of feeling from my gut.
Thank you for sharing your story.
 
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