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Note: 40 Years Later Alison Bath (ABATH@RGJ.COM) RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL September 22, 2006
Forty years ago Pfc. Larry Lakey was fighting the Viet Cong spending mu ch of his time on nighttime patrols in the Vietnam jungle.
The duty was exhausting -- mentally and physically. When he had the tim e, Lakey would write home to his sister Sharon, or mom, Virginia Cantlon.
His letters revealed a young man anxious to stay connected to his family a nd friends. They're peppered with questions about what was going on at hom e, a brotherly warning to a new brother-in-law and a few details of Lakey 's daily routine.
They also reveal the stress of living through a war. "I don't know if I c an make it 12 months over here. Things over here are getting worse rath er than better," one letter reads. "Being over here sure changes a man's t houghts."
It's that letter that gets to Sharon Hon, Lakey's sister. She re-read t he note last week for the first time since it was sent in June 1966.
"I read it and I started sobbing, crying so bad I could hardly catch my br eath," said Hon, a Sparks resident.
About three months after writing that letter, Lakey was assigned to a nigh ttime patrol near Da Nang. A platoon leader, the 20-year-old was leading f ellow U.S. Marines on Sept. 22, 1966, when he stepped on a land mine.
The Sparks resident was killed instantly -- making him the first Rail Ci ty casualty in the Vietnam War. His last letter, to his mother, had arriv ed just days before.
"She aged over night," said Hon of what happened to her mother after learn ing her son was dead. "She was never the same."
Virginia Cantlon died in 1999.
And even though Lakey was killed four decades ago, the loss impacts his fa mily and friends today -- a wound, Hon said, that festers each time the de ath of a local soldier in the Iraq War is announced.
"You think it gets easier as time goes by," she said. "It doesn't. You sti ll miss him -- it goes deep."
It's the same for Lakey's best friend, Jack Snyder. Snyder keeps a pho to of Lakey near his computer -- the memento is a bittersweet remind er of happier times. It also tugs at Snyder's heart.
A year younger than Lakey, Snyder wanted to quit school and go to war wi th his best friend. But Lakey wouldn't hear of it -- telling Snyder to st ay home instead.
"Sometimes I feel like he took my place and I don't like that," said Snyde r, a 59-year-old Reno resident. "That was a bad time for us back in tho se years. Other guys I knew from my class and my school died in Vietnam."
Both Hon and Snyder remember a young man who was earnest and well-lik ed by his peers and teachers.
For Hon, Lakey was a protective big brother, who liked to work on cars, dr ive his Mustang motorcycle and, on occasion, tease his sister.
"He was a very caring person," Hon said. "He was a gentle person. He nev er used a gun (before enlisting in the Marines). He was very kind."
Snyder remembers a neighborhood pal who came to his rescue not long aft er he moved to a home on Greenbrae Drive. Lakey showed him around town, h ow to get set up for school and helped him get a job at an A & W restaura nt on Prater Way.
He also remembers a friend, who despite his reserved demeanor was f un to be with and comical in his own way. A dutiful son, Lakey would pi ck his mom up from work each day.
"To see them come home on the Mustang (motorcycle), his mother hangi ng on the back and him whipping into the drive way -- it was the funnie st thing you ever saw," Snyder said. "She had more fun on that thing th an he did."
His family isn't sure why Lakey, a 1965 Sparks High graduate, joined the M arines. After discussing options with his stepfather, Charles Cantlon a nd friends, Lakey set his sights on the U.S. Navy. The lanky, reserved you th knew he was about to be drafted and he wanted to choose which bran ch of the service he would go into rather than automatically endi ng up in the U.S. Army.
But a trip to the recruiters' office changed Lakey's mind -- a Marine conv inced him to join the Corps. Hon suspects it was promises of government mo ney for education after his service was complete that lured her brother.
"He thought it was his duty to go into the military and get that over a nd done with because he was going to go to school," she said.
Snyder said it was a "slick" talking Marine.
"Education was why Larry wanted to go in," he said. "(The Marines) we re a little more progressive (as far as offering benefits).
In any case, not long after Lakey went to boot camp for six months. Hon re members her brother coming to visit her at work, at the A & W restaurant ( now home to Scooper's Drive-in) the night before he left.
"I was hanging on to the car door, crying," Hon recalled. "I didn't want h im to leave. I was scared."
While he was away at boot camp, the family learned Lakey's girlfriend w as pregnant. The girlfriend's family didn't handle the news very well a nd the couple broke up.
Lakey would never see his baby daughter. However, Hon and her mother met t he young woman nearly two decades later.
"She is part of my brother," said Hon of knowing her niece. "(We have a) c loseness ... I feel I lost that with my bother and I feel I have that wi th her." One of the last times Hon spent with her brother was Christmas 19 65. The family went to Idaho to spend the holiday with Cantlon's parent s. Three months in boot camp already had influenced Lakey.
"He was already different," Hon said. "He had a lot on his mind."
Lakey finished up the rest of his training, came back to spend some ti me in Sparks and later shipped out to Vietnam. Then the letters started co ming. Some to Hon. Some to his mother. Others to friends.
In one, Lakey lectures his new brother-in-law, Rex Barker Jr., about taki ng good care of Sharon. Barker, who died in a 1969 car accident, and Shar on had suddenly married and the news came as a surprise. In another, Lak ey inquires about a potato cake his mother was going to send to him.
No matter how tough things got Lakey managed to find a pen and paper a nd a brief moment to write home.
"They didn't have a phone or e-mail," Hon said. "All they had was just a l ittle flashlight (to use in the dark) and a pen."
A few days after receiving that final letter postmarked Sept. 13, 1966, Ca ntlon had a terrible dream -- her son had been killed. The next morning Ca ntlon was at a neighbor's house when she saw a government car pull into t he driveway of her home. She left the neighbor and headed to her home.
"She went into the house and shut the door and didn't want to let them in ," Hon said. "But (eventually) she did and they told her."
The news was devastating blow to Cantlon, who had already lost two other c hildren.
Hon said the following days and weeks were a blur. Pictures of her broth er were in the newspaper -- an experience that was surreal.
"It was too unreal," she said. "When you see things like that ... it's li ke a nightmare."
Hon is comforted by the fact, the family was able to bury Lakey's remai ns -- something she knows many other families of soldiers killed in Vietn am and of those dying in Iraq today don't get to do.
She also finds solace in the fact that longtime residents and friends sti ll remember her brother -- one even saving an old newspaper article abo ut Lakey and recently giving it to her.
Still, his death haunts her.
Hon can't watch movies about Vietnam or any war for that matter. While s he didn't question U.S. involvement in Vietnam at the time, Hon said, lat er she came to wonder why her brother had to die. That question still reso nates today.
"(The Iraq War) is a war like Vietnam," she said. "I thought Vietnam was t he worse it could get and it's not."
While Snyder supports current U.S. involvement in the Middle East, he worr ies public and worldwide sentiment is not allowing the military to do t he job right -- the same problem, he said, the country faced in Vietnam.
"We're not trying to win, we're just screwing around," he said. "We're ju st doing it wrong."
For Hon, the 40th anniversary of her brother's death comes at a time wh en the world seems somehow different and, yet, much the same as it d id in 1960
"I felt safe when my brother was over (Vietnam) but since Sept. 11, I don 't feel safe anymore," she said.
Larry Lee Lakey Private First Class PERSONAL DATA Home of Record: Sparks, NV Date of birth: 12/20/1945 MILITARY DATA Service: United States Marine Corps Grade at loss: E2 Rank: Private First Class ID No: 2181713 MOS: 0311: RIFLEMAN Length Service: 00 Unit: D CO, 1ST BN, 3RD MARINES, 3RD MARDIV, III MAF
CASUALTY DATA Start Tour: ------ Incident Date: 09/22/1966 Casualty Date: 09/22/1966 Age at Loss: 20 Location: Quang Nam Province, South Vietnam Remains: Body recovered Casualty Type: Hostile, died outright Casualty Reason: Ground casualty Casualty Detail: Other explosive device URL: www.VirtualWall.org/dl/LakeyLL01a.htm
ON THE WALL Panel 10E Line 133
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