(Editor’s note: I met Tim Kelly many years ago and worked for him at the Lexington Herald-Leader, where he was the editor-in-chief becoming publisher, through most of the 1990s. Those of you who may remember my column about my old friend, Johnny McGill, might also be interested in Tim’s touching tribute to Johnny and another Vietnam War vet.)

Vietnam conflict reached across decades to

 take lives of two vets

By Tim Kelly

HERALD-LEADER PUBLISHER

They played Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds at one and Let It Be at the other –Beatles songs from the Vietnam era that still resonate all these many years later.

I had just attended a second memorial service within weeks for guys I knew growing up in Ashland but had not been close to as an adult. Each had served in Vietnam, and each suffered from the effects of that war to his dying day.

The lyrics were still rattling around in my head when I picked up a copy of The New York Times at the Kansas City airport.

“Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be …”

As I settled into my seat on the plane, staring back at me from the front page was a four-column photo of a line of American soldiers in Iraq, making their way through waist-high vegetation. Palm trees were in the background.

Instant flashback.

If you didn’t know better, you’d have sworn it was from Vietnam.

Let it be, indeed.

That was two weeks ago, and I haven’t been able to let it go — or let it be.

The thought that American soldiers are dying this Memorial Day weekend in another far-off place in another controversial war that our leaders can’t find their way out of is not just ironic or haunting. It’s insane.

John McGill Jr. — Johnny to everyone who knew him — and I played peewee baseball together one summer in Ashland. We were 7 or 8, and my dad was the coach. It was the only time he ever coached a team that I played on.

He had been the basketball coach at two high schools, but he didn’t think he should coach a team in any sport with either my brother or me on it. That he did it this one time makes it a special memory.

Johnny was in public school and I was in parochial and our paths never crossed again as kids. He moved to Lexington when his father, John McGill Sr., joined The Lexington Herald. Johnny would grow up to be a very accomplished writer for this newspaper and other publications.

Johnny was awarded a Bronze Star in Vietnam. But everybody who knew him before and after Vietnam says he came back a changed man. He also came back with something else. Johnny was diagnosed last year with angiosarcoma, a cancer linked to Agent Orange, the herbicide used in Vietnam. He later developed spinal cancer.

Johnny died March 10 at age 59.

His favorite song was Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.

Richard Thompson was known as Dick in Ashland and as Rich in Kansas City, where he eventually settled and worked in the restaurant business.

Dick was a nice, shy, gentle kid with a quirky sense of humor. His father, a policeman in New Jersey, had died when Dick was very young; Dick’s mother moved to Ashland to be near her sister and never remarried. Dick and I were the altar boys when his sister and my brother were married 45 years ago. He gave my wife away at our wedding.

Vietnam was a turning point for Dick, too. He returned with addictions and demons that he fought but never shook. His nickname in later life was “Hyper.” Tellingly, memorial donations were designated for the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence of Greater Kansas City.

Dick died May 7 at age 58.

He wanted Let It Be played at his funeral.

My student deferment ended when I graduated from college in January 1970, and my draft status immediately went to 1-A. I passed the physical and waited for the call that never came. A high number in the first draft lottery is likely all that kept me from going to Vietnam, too.

I didn’t serve, but I admire and thank those who did. And especially those whose names are on the wall of the memorial in Washington, as well as those whose names won’t be added but who are still dying too young.

Like Johnny and Dick.

---