Comments on: David Leo Reeve: Remembering the Fallen

By: Steve Fleming

Steve Fleming — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 16:31:39 +0000

Fun to make the connection. That was Dianne Hemmond. (probably spelled that wrong).

By: Andrea R-M

Andrea R-M — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 16:05:48 +0000

Oh, yes, now it’s coming back to me, and I even remember which room it was. I was substituting for one of the female history teachers whose name I can’t now remember, but who was quite popular and provocative at OHS.

By: Andrea R-M

Andrea R-M — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 15:57:39 +0000

Wow, for some reason I’m blanking on this, Steve and Paul. But the points you outline sound exactly like Paul’s senior research paper written for Gowans 490 class in the summer of 1992. And in my U.S. history class, I also still use a whole discussion on U.S. Army attempts to dehumanize the Vietnamese, “gookification,” (I think Paul deserves credit for coining this term.), lifted right out of Reeve’s research from back then. Must have been him, and as I write this, I’m having flickering flashbacks that I did drag him to school with me once or twice.

By: Paul Reeve

Paul Reeve — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 23:28:40 +0000

Must have been me, then, Steve
I have a Vietnam lecture that I still use, although it has evolved over time. Those are themes that I cover, so it could have been me. I’m going to send Andrea an e-mail to see if she remembers.

By: Steve Fleming

Steve Fleming — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 18:12:09 +0000

For some reason I remember parts of the lecture pretty well (this was 20 years ago). You or whoever talked about the problem of determining who was wining the war so that the US army decided to measure success in term of kills, thus the soldiers wanted to kill as many Vietnamese as they could which led to things like Mi Lai. You also talked about how the soldiers referred to the Vietnamese as gooks or dinks. All part of the dehumanization of the Vietnamese. So the fact that I remember it suggests it must have been pretty good.

By: Paul Reeve

Paul Reeve — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 06:00:20 +0000

Steve, that depends. Was the lecture any good?
To be honest, I don’t recall. Andrea was that me?

By: Steve Fleming

Steve Fleming — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 23:01:32 +0000

Paul,

My sophomore year of high school, Andrea was our student teacher for AP US history 1 at Orem High School. The next year, Andrea came back to substitute for AP US history 2, and she brought a guy with her that gave a lecture on Vietnam. Was that you?

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 22:37:43 +0000

Aw, shucks. This VVMF project seemed so compatible with one of Keepa’s greatest themes, that of remembering good people who aren’t here to speak for themselves anymore. I hope to hear more from one reader who told me about a loved one whose name isn’t on the Wall because she didn’t die in Vietnam, but she did die from the effects of her service there.

As for David, I thought it would be difficult to write a whole post about him — since he died before his 22nd birthday, you’d have to wonder what you’d find to say. But it seems he did more in those few years than a lot of us did — he laid the groundwork for doing much more than he was given time to achieve. How he affected people, what those people remember about him all these years later, is also to his credit.

I really like the phrase Maurine used: David lived a short but abundant life.

By: Paul Reeve

Paul Reeve — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 22:10:50 +0000

Bruce, I agree, me too. Thanks all, and thanks Andrea. You are correct, it was David who made me want to figure out Vietnam in my undergrad at BYU.
As for Ardis’s great work, I should have mentioned this in the first post, but Ardis asked to do this post about David to help get the word out on the VVMF project. I readily agreed. I provided her with a few tidbits of information, but she then kicked into full Keepa-Comando mode, with the theme song from the A-team playing in the background, and tracked down information and sources I didn’t even know existed. I’m most excited for my mom to read it. I printed it out and sent her a copy via snail mail, since she doesn’t “blob” and and doesn’t understand what a “blob” post is.

By: Bruce Crow

Bruce Crow — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 21:26:31 +0000

This and stories like it are one of the reasons why I come to Keepa. Thanks.