Still hard to talk about Vietnam

the young American pilot was shot down in enemy territory, a grotesquely twisted ankle was snared by a branch that broke his fall after he parachuted from a crippled F-4 Phantom jet. Dangling upside down in a tree, Air Force captain David Stevenson faded in and out of consciousness to the sound of gunfire, uncertain if he would get out of the Vietnam War alive.

“I joined the military thinking I was John Wayne or Jimmy Stewart,” said Stevenson, who enlisted in the Air Force fresh out of college in 1964, hoping to do his movie idols proud.

I wanted Stevenson to tell me his war story. So this softspoken man with a long, white beard opened a bottle of Pacifico and settled into a chair of his suburban Denver home. Memorial Day weekend had begun; we raised a toast: Cheers.

At 77 years old, Stevenson placed one finger on his glorious beard, evidence he has not been young in a very long time, every whisker a reminder of his great good luck: A young Air Force captain did not die, despite hanging upside down for three hours in a tree behind enemy lines, on Oct. 8, 1969.

A swig of beer brought back a memory from 1969: “Orange Blossom Special” by Johnny Cash. It was a drinking song for the men stationed at Cam Ranh Air Base. Nearly 50 years later, the lyrics played inside Stevenson’s head: “Hey, look a-yonder comin’, comin’ down that railroad track. It’s the Orange Blossom Special, bringin’ my baby back.”

A tear formed in the corner of Stevenson’s eye as emotions buried since ’69 welled up from inside him. As the GIB — the guy in back — of a twoseater fighter jet, Stevenson

had flown 131 missions in Vietnam, raining fire on what he calls “the bad guys.” On his 132nd bombing run, the F-4 Phantom was hit by enemy fire from the ground while climbing away from its intended target. Stevenson bailed out, knocked unconscious immediately by the force of ejecting from the cockpit of a plane traveling 400 mph.

“For a long time,” said Heidi, the wife of this retired Air Force pilot, “he wouldn’t talk about it.”

Stevenson and I met for the first time back in November. We attended a Broncos home game against Cincinnati, sitting together in Section 134, smack dab in the guts of the South Stands. A disgruntled Denver fan turned off by NFL players kneeling in protest during the national anthem had sold me the seats, on the condition I would take a military veteran as my guest.

The scene in the stadium was a full E-ticket ride for Stevenson, although he is far from a Broncomaniac.

“I’m probably too Kumbaya to be a rabid fan,” he said quietly, as if nearby spectators wearing orange jerseys might be disappointed in his small confession. While Stevenson grew up in West Texas, the thrill of “Friday Night Lights” never instilled football fever in him.

What Stevenson really dug was a sense of stadium camaraderie so real he could reach out and touch it. From the first words of “The Star-spangled Banner” to the song’s final notes, the trim septuagenarian stood with back straight as an arrow and a hand placed tenderly next to his heart.

That heart nearly leapt from Stevenson’s chest when fighter jets flying over the South Stands at the anthem’s conclusion shook thunder from the sky. Now this is what he came to see! And it was enough. In fact, with the Broncos trailing 13-7 at halftime, Stevenson politely excused himself, walked out the stadium gates and caught light rail back home.

He departed from the loss to Cincy before I could ask: “What makes you stand so proudly for the national anthem?”

The question lingered in my mind last week, when NFL owners implemented a new policy mandating players on the field stand for the anthem, while president Donald Trump suggested athletes who failed to show the flag proper respect maybe shouldn’t even be in our country.

“Tradition,” Stevenson told me Friday, uttering the word that immediately sprung to mind when he contemplated why we rise together before sporting events for a patriotic song.

But it has to be more than tradition, right? Stevenson left a comfy chair in the sun room of his condominium and went looking for a more personal reason “The Star-spangled Banner” rattles his soul.

Within minutes, Stevenson returned, standing in front of me, holding two sheets of ruled notebook paper, which he presented like a cherished treasure. On the faded paper was a long note, written by hand, delivered by snail mail, the way people did when they had something important to communicate nearly 50 years ago.

Master sergeant Edward “Red” Willis was awarded the Silver Star during the Vietnam War for bravely descending in a hoist from a helicopter, entering a battlefield where bullets flew, risking his own life to rescue “a seriously injured airman from certain death,” according to the medal citation.

The airman was Stevenson. Willis and the helicopter were the airman’s Orange Blossom Special.

While recovering from an ankle injury that would end his flying career, Stevenson wrote Willis to thank the hero for saving his life. Almost 50 years later, however, what Stevenson insisted I see were the 323 words Willis carefully printed in all capital letters and mailed back.

“Dear Sir,” the letter from Willis began, “First let me say, you owe me nothing for rescuing you. I was only doing my job.”

But the part that can make Stevenson cry is the ending: “By the way, October 8 is my birthday. You were the best present I got that day. If I can be of further help, just let me know. Best of luck to you and your family, Red Willis.”

The population of the United States is 325 million. To think the national anthem means precisely the same thing to Stevenson and Colin Kaepernick and Trump and your nextdoor neighbor is to deny our existence as unique individuals.

“We’re not truly free until we’re all free. America’s not perfect. But we’re working on it. I don’t care if you stand, sit or lie during the national anthem, as long as we work together so all are free,” said Stevenson, grateful for every day since Oct. 8, 1969, when a stranger named Red rescued a wounded Air Force pilot from a tree in Laos.

I’m grateful as well. At a time when the United States feels as if it might come apart at the seams in a tug of war between two combative factions yelling so loudly that not a word of compromise can be heard, I met Stevenson at a football game, and he generously shared a little of the Kumbaya in his heart.

So, on this Memorial Day weekend, the real reason I wanted to share a beer with Stevenson was simply to say: “Thank you for your service.”