SALON

Saturday, Jul 14, 2012 9:15 PM UTC

Letters of SC soldier killed in Vietnam come home

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Letters of SC soldier killed in Vietnam come home(Credit: AP)

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Four letters from a courageous South Carolina soldier who tried to tell his family about the fearsome battles that raged around him in Vietnam were returned to his family Saturday, some 40 years after he was killed.

Military representatives of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division presented the letters from Sgt. Steve Flaherty of Columbia to his uncle Kenneth Cannon and sister-in-law Martha Gibbons during a ceremony at the state’s memorial honoring Vietnam veterans.

Flaherty was killed in combat in Vietnam in 1969. Vietnamese soldiers took the letters after Flaherty’s death. They were turned over to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last month when he visited Vietnam.

“It’s a miracle these letters have shown up after all this time,” Cannon said, taking a peek into the envelope that held the missives. The 80-year-old Navy veteran said the family had decided to study them in private because of the emotion of the moment.

“They are in remarkable condition to be 40-years old,” he added. “I know Steve would be glad they are back home.”

Gibbons, 73, said the family decided to donate the letters to a South Carolina military museum that is planning an exhibit honoring the nearly 1,000 South Carolinians who died in the conflict.

“This way they can be preserved for anybody to see,” said Gibbons, 73, from nearby Irmo. “It means a lot to us.”

Lt. Col. Townley Hedrick, deputy commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division, shook Cannon’s hand and kissed Gibbons on the cheek as he presented an envelope containing the letters.

Gibbons said she was grateful to the Vietnamese officer who retained them for so many years.

“We didn’t know they were out there,” she said.

Cannon said he’d been able to read some excerpts from the letters that had been released by the Pentagon, in which Flaherty spoke of the carnage his unit experienced and his own fear and determination.

“I felt bullets going past me,” Flaherty wrote, according to the excerpts. “I have never been so scared in my life.”

The young soldier said his unit “took in lots of casualties and death,” adding, “we dragged more bodies of dead and wounded than I can ever want to forget.”

Flaherty wrote at one point that a “sweet card” he had gotten “made my miserable day a much better one but I don’t think I will ever forget the bloody fight we are having. … RPG rockets and machine guns really tore my rucksack.”

By 1969, the war had sharply divided Americans back home, but Flaherty wrote he still believed in the mission.

“This is a dirty and cruel war but I’m sure people will understand the purpose of this war even though many of us might not agree,” he wrote.

Cannon said his nephew was “a frightened young man, and who wouldn’t be? He knew he was fighting an enemy he couldn’t see in a war we could not win.”

Cannon and representatives of the Army said Flaherty had been born in Japan and was adopted by his South Carolina family at the age of 9, after living in an orphanage dedicated to help children born to Japanese mothers and U.S. military fathers. The mixed heritage made it difficult to assimilate into Japanese society at that time.

Flaherty grew into a stellar student and athlete, even getting an offer from the Cincinnati Reds to join their major league baseball team, Cannon said.

“It’s regrettable he died so young. He’s history now, he made history,” Cannon said. “He felt it was his duty to fight for the country he loved. We are very glad to have Steve’s letters and this part of Steve’s life back in South Carolina.”

More Susanne M. Schafer.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations