TOWNSHEND — It's been more than 40 years since I lost my friend and roommate, Harvey Ross, in Vietnam.
Harvey, along with Vyrl Leichliter, Bob Adams, Donald Osborn, Ron Kolb, Bill Jurich, and Al Simpson, all classmates of mine, died in Vietnam.
Over the years, I have kept some contact with other classmates. Distance has separated us by many miles, so I call on days like Christmas, birthdays, and Veterans Day.
Besides friends of my own generation, from time to time I've added assorted local residents connected to World War II, Korea, and more recent conflicts.
More recently, the calls went to my father-in-law, Pedro E. “Pete” Guerrero. The tradition of him making calls started when he told me that he regularly called a friend who had served in World War II.
That friend died, so I called Pete.
Pete did want to be called on Memorial Day. “I'm not dead yet,” he would say. The past few years, it got to be a contest as to who would call first.
In September, Pete died at the age of 95.
I miss Harvey. I wish I could have called him all these years.
So call a vet around or on Veterans Day. Jon, Bobby, and Bob should be near the phone.