On Veterans Day, a bell rings out in a small church in Gilroy. Candles are lit in the sanctuary of St. Mary’s. A rifle salute is given and “Taps” is played at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6309 on Sixth St. Two-hundred people come out to publicly thank the local men and women who have served America in all wars and to give special remembrance to those who never came home.
May we never forget the men and women who gave everything in serving their country and acting on their ideals – young men such as Margaret and Everett Wentworth’s son, John. After graduating from Gilroy High School, he signed up to join the Army June 26, 1961, his father’s birthday.
Little did he or the Wentworth family know what was to come: Vietnam and three tours of duty. Johnny had a big smile and a lot of nerve. He thought of the other soldiers as family, and he was a little older than a lot of the fresh young troopers being sent. All the kids who fought with him called him “Pops,” and he treated them like his own. There were new faces each time he returned to Vietnam, and he felt protective toward them. When he finished a tour, he would always say he had to get back “where the kids were.”
One day Johnny learned that his buddies were pinned down by machine gunfire, trapped behind enemy lines. Johnny pulled rank and managed to get a helicopter to bring him to the field. He led the men to safety behind some rocks. But that wasn’t all. He went back. Gunfire found its mark as he went back to put out the enemy machine gun. John Wentworth died in that lonely field April 12, 1971. He was 28 years old. In an old newspaper clipping, his many medals can be seen, including the silver star, which he received for saving his friends.
Vietnam vet Dennis Stauffer was a senior radar operator for field artillery in combat zones who survived but lost his younger brother in the war. At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., he found that “It didn’t matter whether you were dressed in the remains of combat gear, leather jackets or three-piece suits, whether your hair was conservatively trimmed or shoulder length and braided. Comrades still, we shook hands and embraced, saying to one another with sincerity and emotion, ‘Welcome home brother.’ ”
In Philip Caputo’s book, “A Rumor of War,” he writes of those who didn’t make it home, “So much was lost with you, so much talent and intelligence and decency … you embodied the best that was in us. You were a part of us, and a part of us died with you … there are a few of us who do remember because of the small things that made us love you – your gestures, the words you spoke, and the way you looked. We loved you for what you were and what you stood for.”
It has been 36 years since John Wentworth lost his life saving his friends, but to those who knew him, it seems like yesterday. Each year, the names of Gilroyans who are gone but not forgotten ring out in churches throughout Gilroy as their names are read aloud and their brave sacrifices are recalled. As we take time to remember those who gave so much, may we always remember to honor those veterans who are still here with us, whether it’s Veterans Day or not.
