Another Sailor Slides Beneath the Waves

I’ve spent the greater part of today looking at pictures, sorting out memories. Memories of a person, not known outside of his own family and small circle of friends and acquaintances; a person who tried, and in my opinion succeeded, to get past a rough childhood and became a viable part of society.

He was born in post-WWII America, perhaps one of those “War’s over” babies, to a couple with some baggage and not a lot of resources. When the marriage faltered, then broke, he was placed in an orphanage because neither parent had the means to take care of him and his step-brother. After the father remarried, he took the young boy and his step-brother to live with his new wife and baby in a small town where hopefully they could become a family. It didn’t quiet work out like the picture-perfect 1950’s family.

There was not a lot of financial stability, and “back then” there were no social workers to check on the children and oversee the blending process. Mistakes were made by all involved, mistakes that would surface much later in revolt, distrust, and violence. 

Time, in it’s normal fashion, passed, and two more children were added to the family, and the step-brother left. The young boy became a teen-ager, and typical for rural families, worked on a ranch, raising cattle and hogs, driving a tractor and baling hay. He was not enchanted with high school, and ditched classes to spend time with friends. Those events generally ended with a “strapping” by his father, who in his own way wanted the boy to be a better person then he had himself been. (The father had never entered a high school.) As a teenager, he engaged in “pranks” of minor or major importance, and again, those that were caught ended with sad consequences. He had developed a few close friends, and they became, over time, inseparable in good and bad.

War had broken out in Korea, and the family’s nightly ritual was the evening news during dinner. “Better dead than red” was the father’s motto. The young man had gone to work for a local timber company, cutting trees to feed an ever-growing demand for wood to build homes for the post-WWII families. Fast-forward to the Vietnam conflict, and the draft. Certain he would be found 4-F during his physical, he and his two best friends went for the physical. All three passed, and all three joined up in the US Navy to avoid (they hoped) ground duty in Vietnam.

His father deserted the family in 1964, leaving the mother with four children, a stack of bills, and no money. The sailor sent a portion of his pay home each month to help with the family. His tours of duty saw a violence he could not imagine, and could not escape. Leave was at times difficult; he had learned to sleep with a k-bar under his pillow. The family was cautioned never to touch him while he slept, as he would react in an aggressive manner. He didn’t talk a lot about what he had seen, but he tried, during leaves, to be sure his siblings understood the world was not as safe as it seemed.

After his discharge from the navy, he drifted in and out of relationships, and in and out of his adopted family, never seeming able to create for himself a safe place. He finally settled in Florida, with a person that felt good, and established himself. He worked in several different industries, hampered by a lack of education, and always haunted by his past. His constant connection with his family was his step-mothers sister, she had long-before married the rancher he worked for as a youth.

I re-connected with my brother during a business trip to Florida in 2004. Over several trips, he told me of his life, and of his struggles. While I accept that his was only one side of the story, I came to understand him better. He gave me insight into the life he had, and I can only be grateful for his time on earth.

Harry Edward Hartman, Jr. passed on March 23, 2012, to a better life. May he rest in peace.