How I Came to Know a Man I Never Met. Part 1

(Hingham, MA) Sunday afternoon, November 10^th 2002. Walking towards the neighboring elementary school for a Den meeting, when my 7yr old Cub Scout stops a mid stride next to a bronze plaque embedded into a boulder. “what’s that dad,” he asks in a way that signals an immanent barrage of questions. It’s a memorial to a fallen soldier, most likely one killed in Vietnam, I replied along with a gentle nudge for us to get moving again. Holding his ground and looking at me with the quizzical slight head turn like that of a confused puppy, “What’s Vietnam?”

The remaining 100 yds to the school’s entrance was occupied with a brief explanation of good guys vs. bad guys mixed with some traditional cold war doctrine. As we entered the school I figured my boy would run off to be with his buddies. He most likely would have had I not stopped to at the picture and read the brief bio of the fallen soldier.

A Hingham native and Bowdoin College graduate. Wow, that’s were I went to school,” I mentioned, only to be rewarded with a 2^nd round of questioning. “Did you know him, where you a soldier, did he fight bad guys, are you going to Vietnam?" No, No, Yes he fought bad guys and No, I said the most reassuring way I could. “You go hangout with your buddies, Ill be in a minute.”  My boy moves on and joined his den while I wrote down the name and some of the bio of Lt Curtis Edward Chase. I’d didn’t know it then, but my son’s had started me on a journey.

How many times had I walked past that monument and never given it a look? That soldier was somebody’s son or brother or cousin or classmate or neighbor.  There must be a reason for his name to be on a memorial by a school. I felt the need to know what happened and understand the sacrifices involved.

I’m not sure that it was coincidence but coincidences and happenstance started to play a role.  The following day was Veterans Day November 11^th. As it would happen, it was also Lt Chase’s birthday.  To learn what LT Chase had been doing in Vietnam I goggled his name plus “After Action Report.”  The first hit was a radio log signed by LT Curtis E Chase, the second was an actual After Action Report that listen his name as an S2 (intelligence officer at Headquarters Company  HHC 2/35^th Infantry) along with another S2.  I did a search on that name, found an email and sent him a note. Fifteen minutes later the recipient of that note, A Dept. of History Chairman at Georgetown Univ replied that he did indeed remember Curt although he did not know him well and recommended I talk with the 35^th Infantry Regiment Association.

Throughout that November 11^th, I sent numerous emails to people associated with Curtis either from within his unit or at Bowdoin College The vast majority replied and told me what they knew, those that knew little would connect me with those that knew more. 

The more questions I asked, the more connections were made.  The most unlikely opportunities availed themselves – this seemed too easy. As an experienced photojournalist, I know how to dig. In all my years, I’ve never had such success or had so many coincidences while conducting background research.

Back in November 2002 and to this day, it feels like a force, greater than myself, is guiding me. It’s leading me on a path to understand and truly appreciate what Curt, and thousands of young men like him stood for, and to advocate for their remembrance as more than just names on a wall.

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