Tribute: Death Of A Hero (In Memorium to Staff Sargent Strickland, My Brother)

My brother, Staff Sargent Strickland, assisting a wounded MP at the US Embassy in Saigon, 1968, as reported by Life Magazine.

In January 1968, in a faraway place of  Saigon, South Vietnam, during a celebration of the new year known as Tet by the locals, my brother Ronnie, an MP at the Embassy, lost his life.   He and all of his brothers in arms were engaged in combat with North Vietnamese forces who had successfully penetrated the secured area's grounds.  The battle to hold the embassy lasted for hours, and many lives were lost, and many of the soldiers and Marines were injured in combat.  News footage exists of my brother and another MP carrying a wounded soldier to safety.  Many of my brother's friends were killed that day, and maybe they were the lucky ones; they would never have to endure the painful memories of battle and gore and loss.  It was over for them.

 MP's escort a captured prisoner after the  Saigon Embassy battle
during the Tet Offensive 1968.

My brother was 20 years old during that attack.  I will say that again, 20 years old, a baby man.  It was his second tour of duty in Vietnam.  He, like so many of the young men there, did not die.  But he did lose his life, his soul, his identity, his heart, and his mental stability, never to regain them again.  He was awarded a Bronze Star for his actions that day.  He never spoke of the battle, and he was ashamed of receiving the medal.  The only comment he ever made was that all of the real heroes died.

His war demons would visibly return anytime he was sedated; he would relive that battle, call names of the men, and cry.  But he never discussed it with anyone.  It was an unfortunate thing to watch; he trudged on through his life for several years before it started taking a toll on him.  Somewhere around 1975, he went to the VA hospital in Dallas for help.  He was physically removed from the hospital clinic for causing a scene when he was refused treatment and forbidden to return to the premises.  That was his last battle; he would never again fight for what he was entitled to from the VA.  Over the years, he deteriorated mentally and physically.  He tried to take his life on several occasions but failed.  He was admitted to private mental inpatient facilities for evaluation and treatment probably 10 times over the years.  He could no longer work, he was verbally abusive to my mom, who lived with him, but she was his enabler, and he was hers.  They fed off of each other's weaknesses for years until her death in 2007.  It was a toxic and volatile relationship and destructive for both of them.  It was what it was.

In 2009 I moved with my brother, who I inherited after my mom's death, to Virginia.  I found an apartment for my brother, a senior complex in a high rise.  He was upset with me for "dumping him in old folks' home."  I just couldn't live with him.  It turned out that he loved living there, he made many friends, there were social activities, and for the first time in his life, he was happy.

Unfortunately, his weight was 650 pounds; he had been sitting in an electric wheelchair for 5 years, not because he couldn't walk, because it was difficult, and his health was in crisis mode.  He should have had bariatric surgery at least 15 years before this time, but my mom would not even discuss it, so neither would he.  Now, at age 64, he decides to get it to move to some godforsaken frozen state to live with a girl he met in his twenties.  He failed to check out the person doing the surgery and ended up almost dying from complications in his hastiness.  He has been in constant care ever since October 31st, 2011.

He suffered temporary blindness, multiple strokes, and the onset of dementia mixed in with the mental and social dysfunctions that existed for years.  In May of 2012, I went to Virginia and brought him back home with me.  He was in pretty bad shape, and the home health care nurse told me he would die because he had too much wrong with him.  He didn't, but his overall health continued to deteriorate until his last stroke, and now Alzheimer's in June of 2015 put him in a full-time care facility.  By this time, he was mean to me anyway, trying to hit me whenever he could.  He was not any of Ronnie's that I knew during my life.

On January 1st of 2018, he was taken to the hospital because he fell out of bed fighting "gooks" and busted his head open.  He was glued up and sent back to the nursing home.

On January 7, I received 3 phone calls from the nursing home telling me he had a little cough but was not sick.  The second call advised me that they did an x-ray, and he had pneumonia but was not ill.  I asked how he could have pneumonia but not be sick; I was told he was just coughing a little.  I questioned them about the danger of any 70-year-old getting pneumonia, let alone one with his health problems.  I told them to send him to the hospital.  An hour or so later, I received another call advising me he had bi-lateral pneumonia.  The doctor on duty for the facility ordered an antibiotic by mouth until he could get there the next day.  I told that crazy beyotch to send him to the hospital immediately.

It's all downhill from that point.  The truth is my brother was severely ill when he arrived at the hospital.  He never got better, only worse.  On January 18th, I received calls from 2 different doctors advising me that nothing more could be done except to give him comfort measures, translation, put him on hospice care, which I reluctantly did with extreme anger at the nursing home and intense sorrow for the suffering of my brother.  I never saw him in a conscious state again; he was sedated, on oxygen, and struggling to breathe.

On Sunday evening, I said my goodbyes, told him to please quit struggling, told him I loved him and that everything would be okay.  I played an oldies station for him on my phone for quite a while, music that he liked, placed my phone right next to his head. I sat there and listened along with him for about an hour and a half, said my last goodbye, and left the room.

On Monday, January 22, 2018, at about 5:10 am, my brother Ronnie, the hero, the troubled and lost soul died his final death, his physical and spiritual death, fifty years after his first death at Tet.  He had a sorrowful life.  I know there are others like him out there.