A Memorial Day reflection
Friends,
Robbie was the kindest person I ever knew.
I met him in our dormitory the day we entered college in 1964. He saw me struggling to carry my big luggage crates up the two flights of stairs to my dorm room and, without saying a word, grabbed one and hauled it to the second floor.
“Thank you!” I stammered when we reached the landing.
“Don’t mention it,” he said with a broad smile, and then offered his hand. “I’m Robbie.”
“Bob,” I said, shaking his hand.
“Good to meet you, Bob!”
He must have noticed I was exhausted by the effort, and lonely to boot. “It’s close to dinner time,” he said. “Wanna walk over to the dining hall?”
“Sure!”
That was the start of our friendship.
Robbie was intuitively kind. He combined a remarkable warmheartedness with a degree of compassion I had never known before. And it wasn’t only toward me. Every young man in our dorm, and many in our class, came to admire and depend on Robbie.
Robbie went missing in action in Vietnam on October 12, 1972. His body has never been recovered.
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