On 28 June 1966 Company A, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry, lost twelve men in a firefight east of Bao Trai. PFC James Allen Tazelaar was one of those twelve men Killed in Action (KIA).
HONORED ON PANEL 8E, LINE 106 OF THE WALL
This is my Uncle Jimmy, my mother's only sibling and her younger brother. He was an integral part of my childhood and I have many memories of him. I was 6 years old and happened to be spending the weekend with my grandparents when the contingent came to inform them of his death. I remember looking out the living room window and seeing a black shiny car with little flags on the fenders park in front of the house. Grandma was in the kitchen. I said "Who is that grandma?" and when she looked out the back door she began screaming "No!" It was a heart wrenching scream that I will never forget. I had no idea what was going on of course. I ran to the kitchen and grandma had gone to the breezeway to the back door. I looked out and saw two soldiers in dress uniforms slowly walking up the driveway. Grandma was hysterically crying. She opened the door and one of the soldiers said "Mrs. Tazelaar we are sorry to inform you…" and that was the last I could hear as she dropped to her knees screaming. The neighbor lady across the street who was grandma's best friend at the time came running over and from then on the house was chaos. Pat, the neighbor began calling people and grandma went to her bed crying. Grandpa was called home from work and my mother who was 8 months pregnant was called over. I finally learned from my mother that Uncle Jimmy had died. He was only 19 years old and was the first combat casualty from Michigan. There had been two other soldiers from whose names are on the wall that had died earlier in 1966 but they had died in a car crash during training. I remember that we were assigned a soldier to escort and take care of the family during the funeral process. All I remember about him was he had dark hair and a roundish but cute face and his name was Bob. I grew infatuated with Bob and followed him around. He was so kind and played with me and talked with me a lot. When Jimmy's casket arrived it was at Clock Funeral Home and I remember walking into that smell of thousands of flowers. There were hundreds of flower arrangements. Of course, it had been all over the news and newspapers that a local boy had been killed in combat in Vietnam. Total strangers sent flowers and came to the funeral home. When I looked at Jimmy it did not seem to be him. He was under glass inside his coffin. They had cleverly disguised his injuries with a neck scarf and bandages on his hand. His face was somber and heavily made up. I hardly ever had seen Jimmy that he wasn't smiling. I heard my mom whispering with Bob about whether his legs and feet were still attached and in the coffin – they were not. It was a very scary and sad experience for a loving 6 year old. About a week after Jimmy's funeral a large cardboard box arrived at my grandparents' house. Apparently Jimmy had a short leave and went into Saigon. While there he bought gifts and souvenirs for all of us and shipped them home 3rd class as a surprise. Grandma flipped out getting a gift from her dead and buried son. I remember her and my mother opening the box and there were beautiful silk kimonos for mom and grandma and other gifts for the men. Grandma bundled them all back up into the box and wouldn't let anyone have any of the gifts. I am not sure what ever happened to those things.
Jimmy was not your typical teenage boy. He was very tall and thin. He was about 6 foot 4 inches and wore 28 inch waist pants. I remember him always wearing long sleeve white shirts even to work on his car. Good thing grandma was wonderful at laundry. He had acid reflux at a young age and I recall seeing him come into the kitchen, open the cupboard, and drink vinegar straight from the bottle to quench it. I always looked at him with a wrinkled nose and said "Yuck." Now I've tried it myself and it works, but pickle juice tastes better. He played guitar and I remember him playing and singing Sugar Shack over and over to his many swooning girlfriends. I could never keep them straight, it seemed he had a different one every week. Jimmy was a budding artist, a serious artist. He made sculptures, many charcoal drawings, but his most timeless art is the three oil paintings we still have hanging in the family home. One was sold to a local physician to hang in his office. It was a pastel desert sunset complete with a broken wagon wheel, cactus, and longhorn skull in the foreground and a mountain range in the back. After Jimmy's death the physician presented it back to my grandmother telling her that he felt it would be more meaningful to her now. Another painting was of the ocean (or possibly Lake Michigan I like to think) with a sailing ship viewed from a grassy cliff with trees. For some reason he never finished painting the bottom right corner and it is still blank white canvas. He framed it that way. The final painting was a moody abstract with flowing mixed hues of black, green, blue, red, and yellow. It always resembled flames to me and he called it "Dante's Inferno." The abstract is my favorite. You have to remember that all of this was before he was 18 years old because he joined the US Army at age 17. Jimmy was never very good in school and apparently had dyslexia before we had a trendy name for it. He was flunking out his junior year and wanted to quit school. I happened to be at their house the night there was an argument about this. Grandpa who had dropped out of school himself, did not think it was a big deal and was supportive of Jimmy but grandma had a brilliant mind and valued education. She was totally against it and I recall her getting upset. After it was 2 against 1 and grandma was losing the argument she told him "Well you're not going to lie around on your lazy butt, you're going to get a job or find some way to get training." Shortly after that Jimmy went to them asking to join the Army. It was 1964 and the US was primarily at peace. No one anticipated that we would be in full scale war within a short time. Because Jimmy was only 17 his parents both had to sign giving permission for him to join, which they did. My grandmother never forgave herself for doing this. She knew in her mind that she could not have prevented what happened, but her heart had other thoughts.
My personal relationship with Jimmy was flat out hero worship. I thought he was the coolest and best uncle in the world. I always wanted to follow him around and see what he was doing. Lucky me he loved me and allowed me to be his shadow usually. Our family, including my grandparents, Jimmy, my mother Arloa and dad, and myself moved to Denver when I was about 2 or 3 years old. We had rented a two bedroom house so grandma and grandpa got a room, my mom and dad got a room, I slept in a crib in the corner of the living room, and Jimmy made his room in the basement. The house had one of those big round boilers in the basement with the huge duct work reaching out from every angle to the various rooms. I was too little to go up and down the stairs myself. But my hero Uncle Jimmy was down there. I would stand on the top step and peek under the floor to see what Jimmy was doing. If he wanted to be left alone he told me that the boiler was an elephant and it would get me if I went down there. I was very curious but also terrified of the "elephant." I remember one day in particular that I was looking from the top step and leaned just a little too far. I recalled falling and seeing the steps flashing by. Then nothing till I woke up in the hospital. Mom told me that I barely touched a step on the way down and landed on my head on the cement basement floor. I passed out and had a huge goose egg on my forehead. Luckily this hard head survived to play another day. We did not stay in Denver long, about a year, and moved back to Michigan. Jimmy's best friend was Dave Kamp and he was always over to my grandparents' house. I fell madly in love with Dave, my little 5 year old self, and remember him telling me that when I grew up he was going to marry me. Dave's name is also on The Wall now. After Jimmy was killed I remember Dave at my grandparents' house yelling that he was going to join and go "kill all of those gooks." Dave did join but got hit in the neck by shrapnel from a grenade and was paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life. He had a pretty full life though, driving a handicapped van with limited movement of his right arm, getting married three times and having a daughter. His last wife was my Aunt Peggy on my dad's side. Small world. After Dave's death it was determined the cause was his combat injuries and his name was added to the Vietnam Memorial Wall.
In 1965 my parents separated and were fighting, headed toward divorce. My grandparents took me and my little sister Kathi in while our parents got things settled. We spent from February that year until December when Kathi suddenly got very ill. Within 24 hours she had died from bacterial meningitis. My grandmother was inconsolable and was blaming herself for letting Kathi get sick. She had a minor nervous breakdown and her physician sent a telegram to the Army asking that Jimmy be sent home for bereavement and to care for his mother. This was granted for 30 days. Jimmy arrived home the morning of Kathi's funeral. For me it was a very strange and confusing time. I was sad that Kathi had "gone to live with Jesus" and couldn't play with me anymore. I was thrilled that my hero uncle was home and now I was living at his house. We were directed by the Health Department to burn all of the things that Kathi had touched. There was a huge bonfire out back and her bed, clothes, bedding, etc. were thrown into the fire. All of us had to take medicine even though we weren't sick so we would not catch Kathi's sickness. My parents were both devastated and clung to me more than usual, sometimes taking me out together with both of them, even though grandma was angry that their divorce was going to be final on my 6th birthday in a couple of weeks. I was excited that Christmas was coming and Santa would soon be here. I remember the funeral and all of the people who were there, almost so many that I couldn't see what was going on. While Jimmy was home he worked hard to teach me how to whistle. It took many, many, many tries but shortly before he had to leave I was able to whistle. On Christmas I was spoiled rotten that year. It seems that everyone felt sorry for me because I lost my little sister and my parents split up so wanted to cheer me up with gifts. There seemed to be hundreds of them. The one memorable gift was my first 2-wheel bike, a blue and white Schwinn that my dad bought me. I was big for my age, but still could barely reach the pedals. On Christmas afternoon Jimmy took me outside and ran up and down the road behind me guiding me as I learned how to balance my new bike. Once again, my hero. The photo that I am including with this memorial was taken on Christmas Eve at the annual family party held by my great grandma Tazelaar (Jimmy's grandma). Jimmy's dog Pal, a pure bred male collie was also thrilled that Jimmy was home. I remember watching each morning as grandma would tell Pal to "Go wake up Jimmy" and the dog would bound through the house, nose open the bedroom door and jump into Jimmy's bed licking his face. I would laugh and laugh. I know this next part is hard to believe, but I swear that it is true. Pal disappeared after Jimmy's funeral. His skeleton and hair was later found lying at the base of a tree where Jimmy and Dave Kamp had built a treehouse out in the woods.
Kathi had died on December 2nd so Jimmy had to leave to return to his Unit on January 2, 1966. He had received orders that while he had been home his Unit had been sent from California to Vietnam and he was reporting directly to Vietnam. I remember my mother panicking. She and her boyfriend Joe took Jimmy to the airport and I tagged along. Mom clung to her little brother crying, so scared that he was going to Vietnam. I remember him comforting her and saying "I'll be fine sis." Of course, he wasn't. Jimmy died June 28, 1966. A void in my life. I love you big guy, keep me a space in Heaven so we can catch up when I get there.
HONORED ON PANEL 8E, LINE 106 OF THE WALL
This is my Uncle Jimmy, my mother's only sibling and her younger brother. He was an integral part of my childhood and I have many memories of him. I was 6 years old and happened to be spending the weekend with my grandparents when the contingent came to inform them of his death. I remember looking out the living room window and seeing a black shiny car with little flags on the fenders park in front of the house. Grandma was in the kitchen. I said "Who is that grandma?" and when she looked out the back door she began screaming "No!" It was a heart wrenching scream that I will never forget. I had no idea what was going on of course. I ran to the kitchen and grandma had gone to the breezeway to the back door. I looked out and saw two soldiers in dress uniforms slowly walking up the driveway. Grandma was hysterically crying. She opened the door and one of the soldiers said "Mrs. Tazelaar we are sorry to inform you…" and that was the last I could hear as she dropped to her knees screaming. The neighbor lady across the street who was grandma's best friend at the time came running over and from then on the house was chaos. Pat, the neighbor began calling people and grandma went to her bed crying. Grandpa was called home from work and my mother who was 8 months pregnant was called over. I finally learned from my mother that Uncle Jimmy had died. He was only 19 years old and was the first combat casualty from Michigan. There had been two other soldiers from whose names are on the wall that had died earlier in 1966 but they had died in a car crash during training. I remember that we were assigned a soldier to escort and take care of the family during the funeral process. All I remember about him was he had dark hair and a roundish but cute face and his name was Bob. I grew infatuated with Bob and followed him around. He was so kind and played with me and talked with me a lot. When Jimmy's casket arrived it was at Clock Funeral Home and I remember walking into that smell of thousands of flowers. There were hundreds of flower arrangements. Of course, it had been all over the news and newspapers that a local boy had been killed in combat in Vietnam. Total strangers sent flowers and came to the funeral home. When I looked at Jimmy it did not seem to be him. He was under glass inside his coffin. They had cleverly disguised his injuries with a neck scarf and bandages on his hand. His face was somber and heavily made up. I hardly ever had seen Jimmy that he wasn't smiling. I heard my mom whispering with Bob about whether his legs and feet were still attached and in the coffin – they were not. It was a very scary and sad experience for a loving 6 year old. About a week after Jimmy's funeral a large cardboard box arrived at my grandparents' house. Apparently Jimmy had a short leave and went into Saigon. While there he bought gifts and souvenirs for all of us and shipped them home 3rd class as a surprise. Grandma flipped out getting a gift from her dead and buried son. I remember her and my mother opening the box and there were beautiful silk kimonos for mom and grandma and other gifts for the men. Grandma bundled them all back up into the box and wouldn't let anyone have any of the gifts. I am not sure what ever happened to those things.
Jimmy was not your typical teenage boy. He was very tall and thin. He was about 6 foot 4 inches and wore 28 inch waist pants. I remember him always wearing long sleeve white shirts even to work on his car. Good thing grandma was wonderful at laundry. He had acid reflux at a young age and I recall seeing him come into the kitchen, open the cupboard, and drink vinegar straight from the bottle to quench it. I always looked at him with a wrinkled nose and said "Yuck." Now I've tried it myself and it works, but pickle juice tastes better. He played guitar and I remember him playing and singing Sugar Shack over and over to his many swooning girlfriends. I could never keep them straight, it seemed he had a different one every week. Jimmy was a budding artist, a serious artist. He made sculptures, many charcoal drawings, but his most timeless art is the three oil paintings we still have hanging in the family home. One was sold to a local physician to hang in his office. It was a pastel desert sunset complete with a broken wagon wheel, cactus, and longhorn skull in the foreground and a mountain range in the back. After Jimmy's death the physician presented it back to my grandmother telling her that he felt it would be more meaningful to her now. Another painting was of the ocean (or possibly Lake Michigan I like to think) with a sailing ship viewed from a grassy cliff with trees. For some reason he never finished painting the bottom right corner and it is still blank white canvas. He framed it that way. The final painting was a moody abstract with flowing mixed hues of black, green, blue, red, and yellow. It always resembled flames to me and he called it "Dante's Inferno." The abstract is my favorite. You have to remember that all of this was before he was 18 years old because he joined the US Army at age 17. Jimmy was never very good in school and apparently had dyslexia before we had a trendy name for it. He was flunking out his junior year and wanted to quit school. I happened to be at their house the night there was an argument about this. Grandpa who had dropped out of school himself, did not think it was a big deal and was supportive of Jimmy but grandma had a brilliant mind and valued education. She was totally against it and I recall her getting upset. After it was 2 against 1 and grandma was losing the argument she told him "Well you're not going to lie around on your lazy butt, you're going to get a job or find some way to get training." Shortly after that Jimmy went to them asking to join the Army. It was 1964 and the US was primarily at peace. No one anticipated that we would be in full scale war within a short time. Because Jimmy was only 17 his parents both had to sign giving permission for him to join, which they did. My grandmother never forgave herself for doing this. She knew in her mind that she could not have prevented what happened, but her heart had other thoughts.
My personal relationship with Jimmy was flat out hero worship. I thought he was the coolest and best uncle in the world. I always wanted to follow him around and see what he was doing. Lucky me he loved me and allowed me to be his shadow usually. Our family, including my grandparents, Jimmy, my mother Arloa and dad, and myself moved to Denver when I was about 2 or 3 years old. We had rented a two bedroom house so grandma and grandpa got a room, my mom and dad got a room, I slept in a crib in the corner of the living room, and Jimmy made his room in the basement. The house had one of those big round boilers in the basement with the huge duct work reaching out from every angle to the various rooms. I was too little to go up and down the stairs myself. But my hero Uncle Jimmy was down there. I would stand on the top step and peek under the floor to see what Jimmy was doing. If he wanted to be left alone he told me that the boiler was an elephant and it would get me if I went down there. I was very curious but also terrified of the "elephant." I remember one day in particular that I was looking from the top step and leaned just a little too far. I recalled falling and seeing the steps flashing by. Then nothing till I woke up in the hospital. Mom told me that I barely touched a step on the way down and landed on my head on the cement basement floor. I passed out and had a huge goose egg on my forehead. Luckily this hard head survived to play another day. We did not stay in Denver long, about a year, and moved back to Michigan. Jimmy's best friend was Dave Kamp and he was always over to my grandparents' house. I fell madly in love with Dave, my little 5 year old self, and remember him telling me that when I grew up he was going to marry me. Dave's name is also on The Wall now. After Jimmy was killed I remember Dave at my grandparents' house yelling that he was going to join and go "kill all of those gooks." Dave did join but got hit in the neck by shrapnel from a grenade and was paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life. He had a pretty full life though, driving a handicapped van with limited movement of his right arm, getting married three times and having a daughter. His last wife was my Aunt Peggy on my dad's side. Small world. After Dave's death it was determined the cause was his combat injuries and his name was added to the Vietnam Memorial Wall.
In 1965 my parents separated and were fighting, headed toward divorce. My grandparents took me and my little sister Kathi in while our parents got things settled. We spent from February that year until December when Kathi suddenly got very ill. Within 24 hours she had died from bacterial meningitis. My grandmother was inconsolable and was blaming herself for letting Kathi get sick. She had a minor nervous breakdown and her physician sent a telegram to the Army asking that Jimmy be sent home for bereavement and to care for his mother. This was granted for 30 days. Jimmy arrived home the morning of Kathi's funeral. For me it was a very strange and confusing time. I was sad that Kathi had "gone to live with Jesus" and couldn't play with me anymore. I was thrilled that my hero uncle was home and now I was living at his house. We were directed by the Health Department to burn all of the things that Kathi had touched. There was a huge bonfire out back and her bed, clothes, bedding, etc. were thrown into the fire. All of us had to take medicine even though we weren't sick so we would not catch Kathi's sickness. My parents were both devastated and clung to me more than usual, sometimes taking me out together with both of them, even though grandma was angry that their divorce was going to be final on my 6th birthday in a couple of weeks. I was excited that Christmas was coming and Santa would soon be here. I remember the funeral and all of the people who were there, almost so many that I couldn't see what was going on. While Jimmy was home he worked hard to teach me how to whistle. It took many, many, many tries but shortly before he had to leave I was able to whistle. On Christmas I was spoiled rotten that year. It seems that everyone felt sorry for me because I lost my little sister and my parents split up so wanted to cheer me up with gifts. There seemed to be hundreds of them. The one memorable gift was my first 2-wheel bike, a blue and white Schwinn that my dad bought me. I was big for my age, but still could barely reach the pedals. On Christmas afternoon Jimmy took me outside and ran up and down the road behind me guiding me as I learned how to balance my new bike. Once again, my hero. The photo that I am including with this memorial was taken on Christmas Eve at the annual family party held by my great grandma Tazelaar (Jimmy's grandma). Jimmy's dog Pal, a pure bred male collie was also thrilled that Jimmy was home. I remember watching each morning as grandma would tell Pal to "Go wake up Jimmy" and the dog would bound through the house, nose open the bedroom door and jump into Jimmy's bed licking his face. I would laugh and laugh. I know this next part is hard to believe, but I swear that it is true. Pal disappeared after Jimmy's funeral. His skeleton and hair was later found lying at the base of a tree where Jimmy and Dave Kamp had built a treehouse out in the woods.
Kathi had died on December 2nd so Jimmy had to leave to return to his Unit on January 2, 1966. He had received orders that while he had been home his Unit had been sent from California to Vietnam and he was reporting directly to Vietnam. I remember my mother panicking. She and her boyfriend Joe took Jimmy to the airport and I tagged along. Mom clung to her little brother crying, so scared that he was going to Vietnam. I remember him comforting her and saying "I'll be fine sis." Of course, he wasn't. Jimmy died June 28, 1966. A void in my life. I love you big guy, keep me a space in Heaven so we can catch up when I get there.
On 28 June 1966 Company A, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry, lost twelve men in a firefight east of Bao Trai. PFC James Allen Tazelaar was one of those twelve men Killed in Action (KIA).
HONORED ON PANEL 8E, LINE 106 OF THE WALL
This is my Uncle Jimmy, my mother's only sibling and her younger brother. He was an integral part of my childhood and I have many memories of him. I was 6 years old and happened to be spending the weekend with my grandparents when the contingent came to inform them of his death. I remember looking out the living room window and seeing a black shiny car with little flags on the fenders park in front of the house. Grandma was in the kitchen. I said "Who is that grandma?" and when she looked out the back door she began screaming "No!" It was a heart wrenching scream that I will never forget. I had no idea what was going on of course. I ran to the kitchen and grandma had gone to the breezeway to the back door. I looked out and saw two soldiers in dress uniforms slowly walking up the driveway. Grandma was hysterically crying. She opened the door and one of the soldiers said "Mrs. Tazelaar we are sorry to inform you…" and that was the last I could hear as she dropped to her knees screaming. The neighbor lady across the street who was grandma's best friend at the time came running over and from then on the house was chaos. Pat, the neighbor began calling people and grandma went to her bed crying. Grandpa was called home from work and my mother who was 8 months pregnant was called over. I finally learned from my mother that Uncle Jimmy had died. He was only 19 years old and was the first combat casualty from Michigan. There had been two other soldiers from whose names are on the wall that had died earlier in 1966 but they had died in a car crash during training. I remember that we were assigned a soldier to escort and take care of the family during the funeral process. All I remember about him was he had dark hair and a roundish but cute face and his name was Bob. I grew infatuated with Bob and followed him around. He was so kind and played with me and talked with me a lot. When Jimmy's casket arrived it was at Clock Funeral Home and I remember walking into that smell of thousands of flowers. There were hundreds of flower arrangements. Of course, it had been all over the news and newspapers that a local boy had been killed in combat in Vietnam. Total strangers sent flowers and came to the funeral home. When I looked at Jimmy it did not seem to be him. He was under glass inside his coffin. They had cleverly disguised his injuries with a neck scarf and bandages on his hand. His face was somber and heavily made up. I hardly ever had seen Jimmy that he wasn't smiling. I heard my mom whispering with Bob about whether his legs and feet were still attached and in the coffin – they were not. It was a very scary and sad experience for a loving 6 year old. About a week after Jimmy's funeral a large cardboard box arrived at my grandparents' house. Apparently Jimmy had a short leave and went into Saigon. While there he bought gifts and souvenirs for all of us and shipped them home 3rd class as a surprise. Grandma flipped out getting a gift from her dead and buried son. I remember her and my mother opening the box and there were beautiful silk kimonos for mom and grandma and other gifts for the men. Grandma bundled them all back up into the box and wouldn't let anyone have any of the gifts. I am not sure what ever happened to those things.
Jimmy was not your typical teenage boy. He was very tall and thin. He was about 6 foot 4 inches and wore 28 inch waist pants. I remember him always wearing long sleeve white shirts even to work on his car. Good thing grandma was wonderful at laundry. He had acid reflux at a young age and I recall seeing him come into the kitchen, open the cupboard, and drink vinegar straight from the bottle to quench it. I always looked at him with a wrinkled nose and said "Yuck." Now I've tried it myself and it works, but pickle juice tastes better. He played guitar and I remember him playing and singing Sugar Shack over and over to his many swooning girlfriends. I could never keep them straight, it seemed he had a different one every week. Jimmy was a budding artist, a serious artist. He made sculptures, many charcoal drawings, but his most timeless art is the three oil paintings we still have hanging in the family home. One was sold to a local physician to hang in his office. It was a pastel desert sunset complete with a broken wagon wheel, cactus, and longhorn skull in the foreground and a mountain range in the back. After Jimmy's death the physician presented it back to my grandmother telling her that he felt it would be more meaningful to her now. Another painting was of the ocean (or possibly Lake Michigan I like to think) with a sailing ship viewed from a grassy cliff with trees. For some reason he never finished painting the bottom right corner and it is still blank white canvas. He framed it that way. The final painting was a moody abstract with flowing mixed hues of black, green, blue, red, and yellow. It always resembled flames to me and he called it "Dante's Inferno." The abstract is my favorite. You have to remember that all of this was before he was 18 years old because he joined the US Army at age 17. Jimmy was never very good in school and apparently had dyslexia before we had a trendy name for it. He was flunking out his junior year and wanted to quit school. I happened to be at their house the night there was an argument about this. Grandpa who had dropped out of school himself, did not think it was a big deal and was supportive of Jimmy but grandma had a brilliant mind and valued education. She was totally against it and I recall her getting upset. After it was 2 against 1 and grandma was losing the argument she told him "Well you're not going to lie around on your lazy butt, you're going to get a job or find some way to get training." Shortly after that Jimmy went to them asking to join the Army. It was 1964 and the US was primarily at peace. No one anticipated that we would be in full scale war within a short time. Because Jimmy was only 17 his parents both had to sign giving permission for him to join, which they did. My grandmother never forgave herself for doing this. She knew in her mind that she could not have prevented what happened, but her heart had other thoughts.
My personal relationship with Jimmy was flat out hero worship. I thought he was the coolest and best uncle in the world. I always wanted to follow him around and see what he was doing. Lucky me he loved me and allowed me to be his shadow usually. Our family, including my grandparents, Jimmy, my mother Arloa and dad, and myself moved to Denver when I was about 2 or 3 years old. We had rented a two bedroom house so grandma and grandpa got a room, my mom and dad got a room, I slept in a crib in the corner of the living room, and Jimmy made his room in the basement. The house had one of those big round boilers in the basement with the huge duct work reaching out from every angle to the various rooms. I was too little to go up and down the stairs myself. But my hero Uncle Jimmy was down there. I would stand on the top step and peek under the floor to see what Jimmy was doing. If he wanted to be left alone he told me that the boiler was an elephant and it would get me if I went down there. I was very curious but also terrified of the "elephant." I remember one day in particular that I was looking from the top step and leaned just a little too far. I recalled falling and seeing the steps flashing by. Then nothing till I woke up in the hospital. Mom told me that I barely touched a step on the way down and landed on my head on the cement basement floor. I passed out and had a huge goose egg on my forehead. Luckily this hard head survived to play another day. We did not stay in Denver long, about a year, and moved back to Michigan. Jimmy's best friend was Dave Kamp and he was always over to my grandparents' house. I fell madly in love with Dave, my little 5 year old self, and remember him telling me that when I grew up he was going to marry me. Dave's name is also on The Wall now. After Jimmy was killed I remember Dave at my grandparents' house yelling that he was going to join and go "kill all of those gooks." Dave did join but got hit in the neck by shrapnel from a grenade and was paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life. He had a pretty full life though, driving a handicapped van with limited movement of his right arm, getting married three times and having a daughter. His last wife was my Aunt Peggy on my dad's side. Small world. After Dave's death it was determined the cause was his combat injuries and his name was added to the Vietnam Memorial Wall.
In 1965 my parents separated and were fighting, headed toward divorce. My grandparents took me and my little sister Kathi in while our parents got things settled. We spent from February that year until December when Kathi suddenly got very ill. Within 24 hours she had died from bacterial meningitis. My grandmother was inconsolable and was blaming herself for letting Kathi get sick. She had a minor nervous breakdown and her physician sent a telegram to the Army asking that Jimmy be sent home for bereavement and to care for his mother. This was granted for 30 days. Jimmy arrived home the morning of Kathi's funeral. For me it was a very strange and confusing time. I was sad that Kathi had "gone to live with Jesus" and couldn't play with me anymore. I was thrilled that my hero uncle was home and now I was living at his house. We were directed by the Health Department to burn all of the things that Kathi had touched. There was a huge bonfire out back and her bed, clothes, bedding, etc. were thrown into the fire. All of us had to take medicine even though we weren't sick so we would not catch Kathi's sickness. My parents were both devastated and clung to me more than usual, sometimes taking me out together with both of them, even though grandma was angry that their divorce was going to be final on my 6th birthday in a couple of weeks. I was excited that Christmas was coming and Santa would soon be here. I remember the funeral and all of the people who were there, almost so many that I couldn't see what was going on. While Jimmy was home he worked hard to teach me how to whistle. It took many, many, many tries but shortly before he had to leave I was able to whistle. On Christmas I was spoiled rotten that year. It seems that everyone felt sorry for me because I lost my little sister and my parents split up so wanted to cheer me up with gifts. There seemed to be hundreds of them. The one memorable gift was my first 2-wheel bike, a blue and white Schwinn that my dad bought me. I was big for my age, but still could barely reach the pedals. On Christmas afternoon Jimmy took me outside and ran up and down the road behind me guiding me as I learned how to balance my new bike. Once again, my hero. The photo that I am including with this memorial was taken on Christmas Eve at the annual family party held by my great grandma Tazelaar (Jimmy's grandma). Jimmy's dog Pal, a pure bred male collie was also thrilled that Jimmy was home. I remember watching each morning as grandma would tell Pal to "Go wake up Jimmy" and the dog would bound through the house, nose open the bedroom door and jump into Jimmy's bed licking his face. I would laugh and laugh. I know this next part is hard to believe, but I swear that it is true. Pal disappeared after Jimmy's funeral. His skeleton and hair was later found lying at the base of a tree where Jimmy and Dave Kamp had built a treehouse out in the woods.
Kathi had died on December 2nd so Jimmy had to leave to return to his Unit on January 2, 1966. He had received orders that while he had been home his Unit had been sent from California to Vietnam and he was reporting directly to Vietnam. I remember my mother panicking. She and her boyfriend Joe took Jimmy to the airport and I tagged along. Mom clung to her little brother crying, so scared that he was going to Vietnam. I remember him comforting her and saying "I'll be fine sis." Of course, he wasn't. Jimmy died June 28, 1966. A void in my life. I love you big guy, keep me a space in Heaven so we can catch up when I get there.
HONORED ON PANEL 8E, LINE 106 OF THE WALL
This is my Uncle Jimmy, my mother's only sibling and her younger brother. He was an integral part of my childhood and I have many memories of him. I was 6 years old and happened to be spending the weekend with my grandparents when the contingent came to inform them of his death. I remember looking out the living room window and seeing a black shiny car with little flags on the fenders park in front of the house. Grandma was in the kitchen. I said "Who is that grandma?" and when she looked out the back door she began screaming "No!" It was a heart wrenching scream that I will never forget. I had no idea what was going on of course. I ran to the kitchen and grandma had gone to the breezeway to the back door. I looked out and saw two soldiers in dress uniforms slowly walking up the driveway. Grandma was hysterically crying. She opened the door and one of the soldiers said "Mrs. Tazelaar we are sorry to inform you…" and that was the last I could hear as she dropped to her knees screaming. The neighbor lady across the street who was grandma's best friend at the time came running over and from then on the house was chaos. Pat, the neighbor began calling people and grandma went to her bed crying. Grandpa was called home from work and my mother who was 8 months pregnant was called over. I finally learned from my mother that Uncle Jimmy had died. He was only 19 years old and was the first combat casualty from Michigan. There had been two other soldiers from whose names are on the wall that had died earlier in 1966 but they had died in a car crash during training. I remember that we were assigned a soldier to escort and take care of the family during the funeral process. All I remember about him was he had dark hair and a roundish but cute face and his name was Bob. I grew infatuated with Bob and followed him around. He was so kind and played with me and talked with me a lot. When Jimmy's casket arrived it was at Clock Funeral Home and I remember walking into that smell of thousands of flowers. There were hundreds of flower arrangements. Of course, it had been all over the news and newspapers that a local boy had been killed in combat in Vietnam. Total strangers sent flowers and came to the funeral home. When I looked at Jimmy it did not seem to be him. He was under glass inside his coffin. They had cleverly disguised his injuries with a neck scarf and bandages on his hand. His face was somber and heavily made up. I hardly ever had seen Jimmy that he wasn't smiling. I heard my mom whispering with Bob about whether his legs and feet were still attached and in the coffin – they were not. It was a very scary and sad experience for a loving 6 year old. About a week after Jimmy's funeral a large cardboard box arrived at my grandparents' house. Apparently Jimmy had a short leave and went into Saigon. While there he bought gifts and souvenirs for all of us and shipped them home 3rd class as a surprise. Grandma flipped out getting a gift from her dead and buried son. I remember her and my mother opening the box and there were beautiful silk kimonos for mom and grandma and other gifts for the men. Grandma bundled them all back up into the box and wouldn't let anyone have any of the gifts. I am not sure what ever happened to those things.
Jimmy was not your typical teenage boy. He was very tall and thin. He was about 6 foot 4 inches and wore 28 inch waist pants. I remember him always wearing long sleeve white shirts even to work on his car. Good thing grandma was wonderful at laundry. He had acid reflux at a young age and I recall seeing him come into the kitchen, open the cupboard, and drink vinegar straight from the bottle to quench it. I always looked at him with a wrinkled nose and said "Yuck." Now I've tried it myself and it works, but pickle juice tastes better. He played guitar and I remember him playing and singing Sugar Shack over and over to his many swooning girlfriends. I could never keep them straight, it seemed he had a different one every week. Jimmy was a budding artist, a serious artist. He made sculptures, many charcoal drawings, but his most timeless art is the three oil paintings we still have hanging in the family home. One was sold to a local physician to hang in his office. It was a pastel desert sunset complete with a broken wagon wheel, cactus, and longhorn skull in the foreground and a mountain range in the back. After Jimmy's death the physician presented it back to my grandmother telling her that he felt it would be more meaningful to her now. Another painting was of the ocean (or possibly Lake Michigan I like to think) with a sailing ship viewed from a grassy cliff with trees. For some reason he never finished painting the bottom right corner and it is still blank white canvas. He framed it that way. The final painting was a moody abstract with flowing mixed hues of black, green, blue, red, and yellow. It always resembled flames to me and he called it "Dante's Inferno." The abstract is my favorite. You have to remember that all of this was before he was 18 years old because he joined the US Army at age 17. Jimmy was never very good in school and apparently had dyslexia before we had a trendy name for it. He was flunking out his junior year and wanted to quit school. I happened to be at their house the night there was an argument about this. Grandpa who had dropped out of school himself, did not think it was a big deal and was supportive of Jimmy but grandma had a brilliant mind and valued education. She was totally against it and I recall her getting upset. After it was 2 against 1 and grandma was losing the argument she told him "Well you're not going to lie around on your lazy butt, you're going to get a job or find some way to get training." Shortly after that Jimmy went to them asking to join the Army. It was 1964 and the US was primarily at peace. No one anticipated that we would be in full scale war within a short time. Because Jimmy was only 17 his parents both had to sign giving permission for him to join, which they did. My grandmother never forgave herself for doing this. She knew in her mind that she could not have prevented what happened, but her heart had other thoughts.
My personal relationship with Jimmy was flat out hero worship. I thought he was the coolest and best uncle in the world. I always wanted to follow him around and see what he was doing. Lucky me he loved me and allowed me to be his shadow usually. Our family, including my grandparents, Jimmy, my mother Arloa and dad, and myself moved to Denver when I was about 2 or 3 years old. We had rented a two bedroom house so grandma and grandpa got a room, my mom and dad got a room, I slept in a crib in the corner of the living room, and Jimmy made his room in the basement. The house had one of those big round boilers in the basement with the huge duct work reaching out from every angle to the various rooms. I was too little to go up and down the stairs myself. But my hero Uncle Jimmy was down there. I would stand on the top step and peek under the floor to see what Jimmy was doing. If he wanted to be left alone he told me that the boiler was an elephant and it would get me if I went down there. I was very curious but also terrified of the "elephant." I remember one day in particular that I was looking from the top step and leaned just a little too far. I recalled falling and seeing the steps flashing by. Then nothing till I woke up in the hospital. Mom told me that I barely touched a step on the way down and landed on my head on the cement basement floor. I passed out and had a huge goose egg on my forehead. Luckily this hard head survived to play another day. We did not stay in Denver long, about a year, and moved back to Michigan. Jimmy's best friend was Dave Kamp and he was always over to my grandparents' house. I fell madly in love with Dave, my little 5 year old self, and remember him telling me that when I grew up he was going to marry me. Dave's name is also on The Wall now. After Jimmy was killed I remember Dave at my grandparents' house yelling that he was going to join and go "kill all of those gooks." Dave did join but got hit in the neck by shrapnel from a grenade and was paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life. He had a pretty full life though, driving a handicapped van with limited movement of his right arm, getting married three times and having a daughter. His last wife was my Aunt Peggy on my dad's side. Small world. After Dave's death it was determined the cause was his combat injuries and his name was added to the Vietnam Memorial Wall.
In 1965 my parents separated and were fighting, headed toward divorce. My grandparents took me and my little sister Kathi in while our parents got things settled. We spent from February that year until December when Kathi suddenly got very ill. Within 24 hours she had died from bacterial meningitis. My grandmother was inconsolable and was blaming herself for letting Kathi get sick. She had a minor nervous breakdown and her physician sent a telegram to the Army asking that Jimmy be sent home for bereavement and to care for his mother. This was granted for 30 days. Jimmy arrived home the morning of Kathi's funeral. For me it was a very strange and confusing time. I was sad that Kathi had "gone to live with Jesus" and couldn't play with me anymore. I was thrilled that my hero uncle was home and now I was living at his house. We were directed by the Health Department to burn all of the things that Kathi had touched. There was a huge bonfire out back and her bed, clothes, bedding, etc. were thrown into the fire. All of us had to take medicine even though we weren't sick so we would not catch Kathi's sickness. My parents were both devastated and clung to me more than usual, sometimes taking me out together with both of them, even though grandma was angry that their divorce was going to be final on my 6th birthday in a couple of weeks. I was excited that Christmas was coming and Santa would soon be here. I remember the funeral and all of the people who were there, almost so many that I couldn't see what was going on. While Jimmy was home he worked hard to teach me how to whistle. It took many, many, many tries but shortly before he had to leave I was able to whistle. On Christmas I was spoiled rotten that year. It seems that everyone felt sorry for me because I lost my little sister and my parents split up so wanted to cheer me up with gifts. There seemed to be hundreds of them. The one memorable gift was my first 2-wheel bike, a blue and white Schwinn that my dad bought me. I was big for my age, but still could barely reach the pedals. On Christmas afternoon Jimmy took me outside and ran up and down the road behind me guiding me as I learned how to balance my new bike. Once again, my hero. The photo that I am including with this memorial was taken on Christmas Eve at the annual family party held by my great grandma Tazelaar (Jimmy's grandma). Jimmy's dog Pal, a pure bred male collie was also thrilled that Jimmy was home. I remember watching each morning as grandma would tell Pal to "Go wake up Jimmy" and the dog would bound through the house, nose open the bedroom door and jump into Jimmy's bed licking his face. I would laugh and laugh. I know this next part is hard to believe, but I swear that it is true. Pal disappeared after Jimmy's funeral. His skeleton and hair was later found lying at the base of a tree where Jimmy and Dave Kamp had built a treehouse out in the woods.
Kathi had died on December 2nd so Jimmy had to leave to return to his Unit on January 2, 1966. He had received orders that while he had been home his Unit had been sent from California to Vietnam and he was reporting directly to Vietnam. I remember my mother panicking. She and her boyfriend Joe took Jimmy to the airport and I tagged along. Mom clung to her little brother crying, so scared that he was going to Vietnam. I remember him comforting her and saying "I'll be fine sis." Of course, he wasn't. Jimmy died June 28, 1966. A void in my life. I love you big guy, keep me a space in Heaven so we can catch up when I get there.
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