THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 26, 1996 TAG: 9605240253
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Kevin Armstrong
LENGTH: 65 lines
David Leonard Jones was as good a friend as I ever had.
In fact, he and I made up half of the childhood clique we called the ``Fantastic Four.'' Jeff Williams and Todd Lash rounded out the quartet.
It was Dave and I, though, that got things started. We met in fourth grade and never parted company until college.
To this day, I can still recite from memory his parents' street address and phone number though I haven't stopped by or phoned in at least a decade.
Dave lived about 20 miles from my house but much closer to the private school we both attended along the outerbelt that encircles Columbus, Ohio.
I rode my first mini-bike during a sleepover at Dave's house - and remember well crashing headlong into the neighbor's abandoned chicken coop. Too young to drive any motorized vehicle, let alone a car, we spent many a Friday night at the Dublin High School football games just down the road.
Some of those fall Friday evenings included a trip to Tullers, a local apple grower that served up hot, homemade doughnuts from the front of their country store. We'd wash 'em down with a swig of cider and consider how life couldn't be any greater.
We'd fall asleep to the eerie glow of ``Chiller Theater'' flashing like a strobe light across his darkened den and awake around noon without a trace of remorse that we'd let the morning pass us by.
I think of Dave often because he forever is tucked away safely in my mind as part of a childhood that can never be bought, sold or lost.
We brought up the tail end of the Boomers, born too late to really know Vietnam. We came of age politically during the Watergate era.
I'm grateful to confess I have no first-hand memories of war.
My father's tales of how he was discharged from the Navy two weeks before his ship was sunk by Japanese torpedoes in the Pacific arouse a curiosity in me but fail to find a real-life connection.
I remember the portrait of my mother's uncle, dressed in Army green, that sat atop a table in my grandmother's back bedroom. Uncle Kelsey, I believe, was his name, though I never knew him. He died on European soil, fighting for his country a continent away.
Still, Memorial Day didn't tug at my soul the way it does many Americans' until almost four years ago. It wasn't until I lost Dave that I really understood the sacrifice to which we will pay tribute Monday.
Dave went off to college on a soccer scholarship after high school, traveled the world as a missionary for several years then joined the Marines. We were fortunate to cross paths again when he pulled a short training stint at Quantico. We took our wives and families to the beach at Croatan and tried catching up on a dozen years.
Life seemed to be heading in the directions we'd both imagined as care-free kids - I was a journalist and Dave was working toward becoming a missionary pilot. It had always been his dream.
In the fall of 1992, he died chasing it.
His copter crashed on a Middle Eastern desert during night training operations. He left behind a wife, two children and a grieving mother and father who still wonder how God's calling turned out so differently.
Dave was born on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day. What chilling irony that he would die in his own military disaster during peace time.
I never knew the true meaning about sacrifice for one's country until Dave died. I'm grateful for the lesson, though willing to trade it and a hundred others if it could bring him back.
He comes to mind every time a Navy jet goes down whether at Oceana or half a world away. And he'll be on my mind Monday when we pause as a nation to reflect. by CNB