...Gary Whipple sat next to me in study hall. He was a senior, I was a junior. He had almond eyes and curly dark hair, and wore crew neck sweaters and corduroy pants, with penny loafers. He had a girlfriend; it wasn't me. That was okay. I liked him, and I liked looking at him. He was mostly polite, a little smart-alecky, funny, and cute.

Gary graduated, joined the Army; I studied and danced and daydreamed my way through senior year, graduated, went off to school, got a job in Boston.

In 1968, just before Christmas, my mother mailed me the clipping from the paper. PFC Gary Norman Whipple, killed in Vietnam 04Dec1968. He had just turned 20.

I still remember how it felt, standing there staring at the clipping, seeing that uniform, those same almond eyes. My life changed forever in that moment. Guess you'd say I grew up.

I think about Gary every year on Memorial Day. Someday I'd like to run my fingertips across his name on the Wall, try to wrap my mind around the idea of that teenage boy in Mr. Jobin's study hall, halfway around the world, dying in service of his country.

He would have been 62 this fall, maybe thinking about retiring. I wonder if his hair would still have been curly.

Thank you, Gary. Thank you, all who gave your lives, all who put them on the line today. I'll never forget.