MEMORIES

of the class of 1966 who was Parmley's best friend.

“He was a great dresser. He came in everyday looking like he was going to a job interview…he was good, sincere, helped everyone.

“…He was just a good American,” continued Baker, a retired Treasury Department investigator, his voice fading as the memory washed over him.

And that special personality wasn't lost on others who met him.

“In all these years, I can still remember the smile, charm and love of life that made him the best friend I had in the Navy,” Daniel Droullard, who met Parmley in Navy medic school, posted on a memorial page on June 2, 2003.

Baker laments his friend's death and the war that took him to this day. Baker's draft number was 361 and he never ever was going to get called into the military. And Parmley might not have, either, if not for his career goals.

“All he ever wanted to be was a doctor. He was afraid he'd never be able to afford it. We were at Mississippi State and he heard about a program the Navy had where if you enlisted and got into the medical corps, the Navy would train you and pay for med school,” Baker recalled.

He went to Jackson and signed up June 24, 1968, after his second year at MSU.

He spent a year in training in California, becoming a hospital man, commonly known as a medic, according to his military records. He learned to surf and climb mountains and “loved the beautiful warm beaches,” a fellow soldier would later write of him.

Then he was attached to a Marine unit that was at the heart of the fighting in Vietnam, the 7th Marine Regiment, 2nd Battalion.

Fulgham was seeing them from the other side.

“The fleet of Marines were coming in. We flew them in and flew them back out and some of their parts would be missing. It wasn't pretty,” Fulgham said of his work on medivac choppers.

The battles were among the most horrific of the war. They are retold in compelling, gut-wrenching detail in the book, “Death Valley: the Summer Offensive,” by Keith William Nolan, the noted author who documented much of the war first-hand.

“We had a two-hour discussion about it sitting in the Union at MSU, we loved the fried shrimp there. I was totally opposed to the war,” Baker said of his talks with

Parmley in the weeks before he enlisted and left.

“I don't think he ever would have signed up if he knew he was going to be attached to the Marines and sent to Vietnam,” continued Baker, who was working at the former Barry Funeral Home in West Point when he got the “devastating news” about his friend's death.

“I don't think Don signed up to kill people.

“We were just kids when I lost him. It set my own view of Vietnam, the hidden cost of getting involved in things like that.”

“A lot of cost is simply unseen. We can see movies and read books but you can't really describe or understand what these men went through. I can't. You just can't take it to that level, the impact it had on so many young men and even their families,” Baker reflected.

“It's a price no one wants to talk about. It's an untold cost that you can never calculate.”

Like many who grew up in the era, Baker read the weekly statistical reports.

“It was swaying the minds of 18 and 19 year old boys, young men. People finally started asking ‘why aren't we winning?' I look back with a certain amount of nostalgia and a certain amount of fear,” recalls Baker, who now lives in Belden outside of Tupelo.

While he is remembered fondly today and prompts some impassioned words, Parmley touched lives even in his death. And it provided such a contrast to Tommy Bryan's experience less than a year later.

When his body was flown from Camp Pendleton in California to Jackson, Miss. to be returned to the family, his uncle, Beverly Veal, a Marine who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, flew on the plane with the casket and was wearing a black mourning armband with his uniform.

That caught the attention by most of the passengers, especially the person sitting next to him, according to the story told by Bobby Parmley, one of three of Don Parmley's brothers. Terry and David are the others.

As the plane landed and taxied onto the tarmac, the passengers were silent as they watched the flag-draped casket unloaded from the plane. The person sitting next to Veal was frustrated because he couldn't help.

That person turned out to be famed singer, actor and teen idol Frankie Avalon. He was just 28 at the time.

In 1968, a year before he was killed, Parmley's parents moved to Columbus. But his heart and memory stayed in West Point.

“I am so glad that I did most of my growing up in West Point.

I think everyday about it and my grandparents' and their house at 422 Calhoun Street right between the Baileys' house and Ms. Ellis' house which was right across from the old Junior High School which l loved,” his brother, Bobby, wrote to Baker.

The words helped Baker and other members of the class of 1966 -- 150 graduated that year -- pay

tribute to Parmley and Mason two years ago during their 50th reunion.

After his death, a member of his unit, Dan Steiner, came to West Point, to pay homage years later. Bill Brennan, who commanded their unit, calls Parmley's brother every year on Aug. 25.

Another member of the unit, Ralph Sirianni, would go on to be

a well-known artist and sculptor. He sculpted a monument at Quantico, Va., engraved with the names of many who died. Parmley's name is on the monument.

It is that kind of greatness lost that still bugs Baker and others.

“Always my hero, always my brother,” David Parmley wrote on his brother's memorial page.

“Don would have been a fantastic doctor. He would have been a great father, a great person. That is what I miss so much,” Baker concluded.

Steve Rogers is the news reporter for the Daily Times Leader. He can be reached by email at news@dailytimesleader.com