Dad was a 'go-getter' as my cousin Ronnie likes to tell me. That's him there, sitting on a pylon of the left wing of one of VA-27's A-7A Corsair II's holding the 'Royal Mace' that they're known for. He was a plank owner and double-centurion on the Constellation. He and Ron were around the same age and served my country around the same time. Ronnie did air traffic control, while my dad flew for the Navy in a new A-7A Corsair II for two tours. My dad's best friend Mikey flew the F-8 Crusader. Their dogtags were sequential by the last digit, amazingly. I get my middle name from Mikey, who happens to be my Godfather. They would all end up doing ATC work in civilian life after Vietnam later in the 70's. Ronnie avoided the devastating Reagan-era strike that reduced the workforce by conveniently breaking a bone during a softball game so that by the time he was healed up and ready to return to work the strike had ended.

Dad was a gifted guy, and humble about it all. He just seemingly did cool things to do them, and he did them all very well. He worked with his hands a lot. Worked on cars, worked with wood, hunted, camped, painted, was into R/C airplanes and models. He was also very good at helping me learn about airplanes, the outdoors, firearms and whatever else my little curious brain could come up with.

All of the folks that have contacted me that he served with have showered him with accolades. He related with the enlisted men (because he was enlisted at one point. He went through NAVCAD but had done earlier enlisted stuff out of High School). He was serious about learning his craft, but he brought levity and camaraderie to those he was around and so he was well loved.

One day, on his second cruise, he got shot down over Laos. He had to spend the night evading. Just like during his SERE training, he didn't get caught. Though I never got to talk to him about all of this, some of it was captured in government documents, like these [note: Documents may say that he was a Marine. Not true.]:

















...
Fortunately, he was rescued and subsequently I got created a year and a half later.
...






He happily made it back to the ship. According to sources, he got in trouble a little bit because while they egressed, he saw the Jolly Green's hosing down the area and he leaned out with his service issue .38 and fired down as well. The PJ in charge said 'Give me that before you hurt somebody. And go sit over there.'



He cabled home to his wife.




If you want to read further about what missions were like during rescues, or what it was like to have to survive being shot down over Laos in the same general area, I recommend reading the following:
Vietnam Air Rescues - Dave Richardson
On Yankee Station - John B. Nichols and Barrett Tillman
Cheating Death - Combat Air Rescues in Vietnam and Laos - George J. Marrett
The Rescue of Streetcar 304 - Kenny Wayne Fileds

I have used all of these (and other) resources as a way to help me connect with my dad's experiences.

He won some medals for his work. [Not shown: his Purple Heart that my sister took and put on his folded flag in a shadowbox coffee table that she has. He made the model of his A-7A that currently sits on my computer desk you see in the second picture.]






His experiences in war, combined with his high stress job of ATC perhaps put him on a trajectory that was deemed unfavorable. I don't know. It's all a mystery. I was a freshly minted seven-year-old when he took his life in the foothills near where we lived.

If you couldn't tell by now, he left his mark on me, but he also left his art and I have preserved some of it.
He once made a topographic map of Washington State out of wood. It had all of the elevations on it and it must have been at least 4'x3' in size. I don't know what happened to that. But he liked to work with wood, and would occasionally produce something like this every now and then:





He used to color on our walls.

We weren't allowed to, of course, but hey, he helped build our house, he could color on it. He did it well.
One of the first things I remember him doing was their bathroom. He drew an owl partially camouflaged by reeds with a brown permanent ink pen, like a sharpie... he would do this around the house a lot over the years...:




He followed that up by doing a nice piece on our kitchen informal dining room wall of an old stump with another bird of prey perched upon it with a juvenile near it. The predator seems almost unaware that there is food nearby in the end of the decaying tree. If one looked close, they would see a mouse peering out of the long, hollowed branch.




We had a (new at the time) 70's split level home where the front door opened to a split stairwell that went either to the upstairs or downstairs. At the bottom of the downstairs, you had to turn right to go into the 'rec-room' On this wall, he drew a mountain lion and I can still recall that on more than one occasion it scared the crap out of people as they gingerly came down the stairs and turned the corner only to come face to face with this:












I went back to my old house this year and the owners still have this piece on the wall. All the rest are gone, including my bedroom wall, as seen below. They put a frame around it though, and I'm tempted to ask them to cut it out and give it to me and I will pay for them to put up new drywall... I think it aged well.





He did a couple coyote pieces, as well, which I still have. They are on artist canvas boards and he did them with a fine-tipped brown permanent ink pen.






I was talking to my Uncle just last year about these. He told my that my dad said he always hid his initials in all of the pieces he did. It's a puzzle. He liked being crafty, I guess. My Uncle passed away recently and I've lost a big connection to my dad, but he told me that one of the pictures was inspired by a National Geographic article that he had read about Coyotes. Given this information, I scoured the internet about it and found the issue he was talking about:



I found a copy available on ebay from a lady out of Colorado and ordered it. When it arrived, I flipped through it and my heart skipped when I saw the spread:



I was suddenly looking at source material for something my dad made. I was euphoric. Here's a detail shot of the Coyote hiding behind a snowbank, and a comparison shot of what my dad drew and the original piece.





Like I mentioned earlier, I grew up learning about airplanes, thanks to pops.
Here is a piece he did on my bedroom wall. If you look carefully, you can see a mobile that hung near my bed with aircraft on it, and also a reflection on the the right side of the photo of a mirrored image of a Fokker Dr.I (which I still have) that was reflecting its' shadow on my wall.

Of course this had to be in Navy Blue. There's no other way.




He did a lot of other pieces and I have some of them, but not all. Hopefully they're still out there in the world. Here's one that I don't even remember seeing and he must have given it away to a friend or something... he liked to hunt and was good at it. He bagged an Elk in '77 and also in '78, probably not 100 yards from either spot... They say that an Elk hunter in Washington will go on average of about 8 years between kills. Nuts.







I miss him. I would have loved to see his continued output through my life but it stopped abruptly at 7 years old. He would have been 70 this year. He had a profound impact on me. I miss him a lot.

This is probably the last picture we had together.






I wrote this to him on his birthday in 2012:

Word Origin & History

Chinook:
Name for a group of related native people in the Columbia River region of Washington and Oregon, from Salishan /činuk/, name of a village site. Name also extended to a type of salmon (1851) and warm spring wind. Chinook jargon was a mish-mash of native, French, and English words once used as a lingua
franca in the Pacific Northwest, and it is the earliest attested use of the word (1840).

Hi, Dad.

You would have been 67 today. Today is your day. I can't help but associate you with the warm winds I feel in late Summer and into the Autumn each year when I'm East of the mountains. I feel the unusual warmth in the evenings on those Blue Moon times I'm out there and can't help but feel like it's you giving me a kiss on my cheek; reminding me why I love where I'm from, why I cherish where I'm at... because you're a big part of it, and that you're still inside me, a part of me.

We're all sad here that you left too soon, and we all wish we could have spent more time with you. I sometimes feel that way, but I've still got my thousands of happy thoughts when we were together. I can't complain, really. You were rad.

I'm 40 now, Dad.

I've now lived 8 years longer than you did. It's kinda weird to think about. It doesn't feel like it took very long to get here.

Anyway...

Wherever you are, you probably know by now that I'm happy and that the things you showed me remain, and I do remember. I remember a lot about you and what you taught me and showed me, and you were a good man. You always will be.

ASNF

True.

excellent artwork !

That was very touching. Good story and great artwork. I'm sad that whatever demons he was wrestling took him way to early. That is just plain tragic.

I would approach that family and explain it to them and see if you could get that piece of wall from their house. Hopefully they will do the right thing.

Wow, all that with just a sharpie. Very cool.

Snapdad..


I do feel your pain and there would be nothing that I nor anyone else could ever say of which could make better.
Understand what you are trying to express within yourself.

My Dad did 2 tours of V-Nam with the 2nd being ATC also ... 161 Ind Recce Flt (Possum's)

He was ok first tour back.. 2nd time, my Father was never the same again .. He lost himself, and so did we.

My best friend forever

And always will be....


Urban

What a talented man your Dad was.....such a tragic loss before PTSD was recognised I suppose.

Your dad sounds like a pretty neat guy. Sorry to hear that things got too hard for him to cope with, but I think if he saw this post and how you feel about him he'd probably be pretty proud.

Fantastic artwork and very interesting war stories.

Thanks for sharing those amazing pics and stories Snap. Your dad was a very talented man indeed.

Man what a guy. Thank you Snapdad for sharing. The artwork is phenomenal and I think it was a very cool and unique thing your Dad did by drawing those pictures in different places in the house. Sounds like he had a great sense of humor as well painting that big cat in a strategic place lol. Its apparent that he was a very talented and special man who served honorably and did his best to take care of his family and even draw men together while in the service. Who knows, there could be artwork all over on this earth surviving that by its being there says "Raleigh was here."

And cheers to the crew of Jolly Green 81 for doing what they did and the other supports that rescued your Dad. They saved at least two lives that day, your Dad and you. Great, great read thank you.

Thanks much, fellas. Glad you enjoyed seeing the works.

Must have been one hell of a guy Snap.
And yeah, you were certainly shorted on the deal, seems a lot of people benefited from his life, much more than you did.
My wife was 9 years old when she lost her father in a hunting accident, the trailer they were in had a faulty heater.
They all died.
He had served in WWII, on a Cruiser. Then had a short life when he was discharged at the end of the war.
She didn't get much 'life' advice from him either.
We talk about him often, even now.

I'm certain you think about your dad often also.

And I certain he would be proud, that you think so much of what he's done.
I'm sure about that.

Very nice. Thanks for sharing. You know, I think your post would make a great article in some kind of veterans magazine, or website. It was very touching and more people should see it. Truly an amazing guy.

Wow Snap, your dad's story and artwork is terrific, sad to hear you lost him so early, but it sounds like he definitely left a big impression on you during the time you had with him which will last the rest of your life, in many ways that is more than some fathers who never put forth any effort with their kids. Thanks for sharing that.

Great post, Snap.

Very touching Snapdad. I'm so sorry that you lost your larger than life and very talented father so young.

I too think he would be very proud of you for sharing this with us.

+1

Thanks for sharing a fine tribute to an exceptional man. It really is worthy of wider circulation. Artistry comes in many forms, and it seems you have carried it on in your own manner.

I agree with LB4LB... look around to see if a veteran's magazine would like to publish it. A bit more light, to push the darkness further back, is a good thing.

Thanks for sharing that Snap.

Amazing talent your dad had.

Great gift and talent for art. "Talent" is an abused word these days (used by elitists in Universities and stupid corporates to look important and valuable). I remember telling an acquaintance of mine that there are a lot of unknown artists in the world who have more creativity than all the scientific researchers in the world combined.

You can tell how valuable his work is if people went through the trouble of framing it and preserving it. Thanks for sharing.