ON THE OCCASION OF THE RE-DEDICATION OF A BROOKLYN, OHIO PLAYGROUND IN THE NAME OF CORPORAL JAMES P. BROCK, USMC, VIETNAM KIA.
Sunday, July 27, 2008. 2:00 p.m.
Today is Brooklyn, Ohio’s 2008 Memorial Day. This playground is being re-dedicated to honor the memory and spirit of one of Brooklyn's own, Corporal James P. Brock. I am honored to be a part of this and I thank Mayor Patton for the opportunity to take the name of Corporal James P. Brock from a playground sign and bring him to life.
I first met Jim back in 1957 when we were both newcomer transferees to the halls of Benedictine High School. Other than my grade school friends attending ‘Benny', Jim was one of my first new friends there and I was on of his first friends there too. Like me, he was Irish-American. With his red hair, he resembled others in my family, brother Rodger and sisters Mary Jo and Jean.
After graduation, we saw each other on occasion and telephoned to stay in touch. Not long afterwards, he enlisted in the Marine Corps and I went into the Army. Once we were both home on leave at the same time but missed seeing each other. Instead, he chose to visit his sister in Cincinnati, Julie, who is Sister Julienne, a religious Sister.
During our service years, we continued to communicate. His letters followed me to Fort Hood in central Texas, the barren desert of the great Mojave that spanned New Mexico, California and Arizona, to the field near Berlin, Germany. My letters followed Jim to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Okinawa. In the autumn of 1965, his letters bore a new postmark - Vietnam.
Jim was happy that I had somehow missed being sent there and asked how I had "skated this mess." There was more than just a hint of frustration in the tone of the letters. The enemy was elusive; "you can't tell the cowboys from the Indians," he said, a reference to old American movies in which most cowboys we were portrayed as good people, and most Indians as bad people.
On December 9th and 10th, 1965, about 5 clicks northeast of Que Son (Khe San), F Co., 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines and E. Co., 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, lost eighteen of their own in an engagement with North Vietnamese Regulars. One of them, who we remember today, was a Brooklyn native and graduate of St. Thomas More Catholic Grade School. He became the first Clevelander killed in Vietnam.
Casualties of many wars were buried where they fell, or in graves in neighboring states or countries. I have prayed over some in American Military Cemeteries - outside Hamm, Luxembourg, where George Patton is rests with troops who fell during World War Two’s Battle of the Bulge. Also at Gettysburg, Antietam, Arlington and Calvary. Jim, however, was returned home.
Friends gathered at Chambers Funeral Home on Rocky River Drive to comfort his family and mourn our loss. Corporal Milton Fredrickson, stationed in San Francisco, accompanied the casket home to Cleveland. In his marine Dress Blue uniform, he stood ramrod straight next to flag-draped, closed casket. On his breast was a Purple Heart medal, awarded for wounds he had received in Vietnam.
December 31, 1965 dawned in typical Cleveland winter fashion - extremely cold with a gusty wind blowing off Lake Erie. After a Requiem Mass at St. Thomas More Church, over one hundred cars drove to Calvary Cemetery on the East Side. A Marine firing squad commanded by Staff Sergeant Louis Minter saluted their fallen comrade with a rifle volley that startled most of those present. It was followed by the haunting reverie of Taps, from a hidden bugler, then-14 year old James Ginley. Corporal Frederick son presented Corporal Brock's mother with a tri-folded US flag, "on behalf of a grateful nation." Clutching the flag, she threw herself over the gray casket and sobbed, "Oh, Jimmy." My heart was wrenched from my chest; I tasted the salt of my own tears.
I later heard Jim's younger brother, John, joined the Marine Corps, probably to avenge his brother's death. Surprisingly, he, too, was sent to Vietnam. Knowing of Jim's sacrifice, however, they kept him in Saigon. I'm surprised he got that far.
In 2006, Marine Corps veteran Corporal D.G. Marso wrote, “Jim was a wonderful friend and a great Marine. He was like a Big Brother to younger Marines in K Co, 3rd Bn, 2nd Marines, 1963-64. We wish we could have been there for you Jim.
Semper Fi, Brother. Cpl. D. G. Marso 1990351
Some things remain fresh as if they happened yesterday. Today, it is hard for me to believe it is the year 2008; all that seems so very recent. Maybe it is supposed to be that way - to remind us that forty-three years is not a long time after all in the loop that is life.
Visit his final resting place at home in Cleveland at Calvary Cemetery or at panel 4E6 on Washington’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Say a prayer not only for the repose of Corporal Brock’s soul but those of the other 58,195 names listed there. And hate war, not the warrior.
On that last day of 1965, it was still early in a war that would eventually claim so many more American and Allied lives. I now realize that most of us in Cleveland were in shock over Jim's death. And, in keeping with Irish warrior tradition, there should have been a piper at Calvary Cemetery that day.
On a recent Veterans’ Day, I returned to that gravesite for the first time since. With me were representatives from the Marine Corps League, American Legion, Polish Legion of American Veterans and the Cleveland Police and Fire Departments. And, this time, there was a piper.
An earlier version of this story titled The Day the Letters Stopped originally appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1995.
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