WarisHell

If you visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, go to Panel 20, Line 3. It is near the top, so you might have to crane your neck. There you will find the name Donald M. Peterson. Pete, as he was known to his buddies, was the lone American to die in a small-scale battle that took place in the Mekong Delta on May 15, 1967 — a battle recounted in a column in this series last week.

The battle never made the papers and was not covered on the nightly news. Peterson’s is just one of the 58,315 names on that wall. But that single name meant everything to a tiny family back in California.

Jacque McMullen had grown up as a military brat, following her stepfather from base to base before landing in Santa Maria, Calif. Smitten by one of the first boys she met in her new high school, Jacque asked Don Peterson to the Sadie Hawkins dance, and the two quickly fell in love. There were football games, surfing and cruising before high school ended, and then it was time for a grown-up future together. The couple wed in the spring of 1966; Don was 19 and Jacque 17.

They found a tiny apartment and had barely started their new lives when the news arrived: Jacque found out that she was pregnant the same day that Don received his draft notice. In May 1966 Don reported for training at Fort Riley, Kan., where he and Jacque shared a house with two other young trainee couples.

Don used his final leave to take Jacque to live with her parents, who now lived in Alabama. Jacque barely made it home before she went into labor, giving birth to James by C-section in late December. Don was able to hold little James only a single time, and then it was off to war. Strictly against doctor’s orders Jacque went with Don to the train station, hugged him goodbye and said: “Don’t run out and be any kind of hero. Keep your head down. We need you.” As the train pulled out of sight, Jacque dissolved into tears and buried her head into her stepfather’s shoulder.

On May 15, 1967, Don Peterson’s squad was caught in a Vietcong ambush. Don’s comrades were being shot to pieces. They were all going to die unless somebody did something. Don shouted, “You guys run like hell, and I’ll cover you!” He then waited an instant before jumping to his feet and firing his M-16 on full automatic to give his fellow soldiers a chance to live. Seconds later he was hit in the chest by enemy fire and killed. Back in California, where she’d recently returned, Jacque Peterson was curled up in bed with little Jimmy, having just celebrated her first Mother’s Day.

A couple of days later, Jacque was drinking an A & W root beer at a friend’s house when a knock came at the door. Jacque had better rush home, a neighbor said; there were a bunch of military guys at her apartment. When Jacque got there, she found three immaculately clad military men seated on her couch. One stepped forward and said, “Mrs. Peterson, I am sorry to inform you that your husband has been killed in action in Vietnam.” Jacque was sure that the news was wrong. They had the wrong Peterson. Her husband, Don, was still alive. It all had to be a mistake.

It was about two weeks after the battle of May 15 that Jacque got the call that she should come down to the mortuary to identify Don’s body. She dropped Jimmy off with a friend and went inside, shaking uncontrollably. The funeral director told her to take all the time she needed. She inched over to the open coffin, and there he was. Her Don. She couldn’t cry; she just sat there talking to Don about everything — their son, their house, their future. Four hours later a friend came in. Jacque had to go; Jimmy needed her. Jacque was only barely able to bring herself to leave Don’s side, turning to say, “I’ll be right back,” as she left.

Three days later, Don Peterson was buried with full military honors in Arroyo Grande, Calif. After receiving her folded flag at the end of the ceremony, Jacque sat alone in her apartment for hours cradling little Jimmy. She was 19 and a war widow, and had a 5-month-old son. What was she going to do now?

In frantic hope of finding a future for herself and her young son, Jacque met and married David Bomann, who promised to love Jimmy as his own. The couple decided that David should adopt Jimmy and that for the good of the future, the memory of Don Peterson had to be set aside. The Bomann family grew and prospered, moving to a tiny vineyard.

Jimmy loved his dad, but by the time he was in high school he began to suspect something. He didn’t look much like his two younger siblings, and he got the feeling that his dad didn’t treat them the same as him. Eventually he confronted Jacque with his suspicions, and she took him up to a footlocker in the attic and introduced him to his biological father, Don Peterson. That day changed everything. Jacque realized that she had tried to replace Don Peterson in her life, to fill the gaping wound in her soul. But it was a wound that would not heal. Her marriage crumbled, while Jimmy went in search of a past denied.

Jacque and David later divorced, and she threw herself into her new future as a single mother. She held down two jobs, put herself through nursing school and raised three children on her own. As a mother and a nurse, Jacque Bomann finally found herself, but life remained sadly incomplete. For his part, Jimmy had something of a rebellious streak, and was in and out of trouble for a few years. He got to know the Peterson side of the family and later even attended reunions with his father’s military buddies to hear stories about his dad from those who knew him best. Jimmy now has a family of his own, and a successful career in the music world, but he still can’t help feeling cheated that he never got a chance really to meet his dad.

Today Jacque Bomann is a retired, doting grandmother. She has had a happy life, she says, but sometimes she reflects on what might have been. She wonders how a war so far away affected her life so thoroughly.

“He was my best friend,” she told me recently, thinking of Don. “We had great plans. He was the man of our little family and was doing such a great job. To this day I resent having to play out this life thing all by myself, without him. It’s not fair. In a little corner of my heart I am so sad I am alone. When I openly talk about Don, I seem to sit in that corner where all my feelings truly are. My husband’s memory keeps me happy.”

Standing at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall, trying to take in the meaning of it all while gazing at the seemingly endless list of names, marching off into the distance in carefully regimented rows, can be overwhelming. Yet each name stands in lieu of the memory of a man who desperately wanted to live and to love. Each etched name marks the shattered hearts of parents who opened the door one morning only to see a casualty notification team that bore the tidings of their son’s death.

Of the total number of American dead in the war, 17,215 were married. Each of those names stands for a widow left to face the future without her beloved husband and for children who would never have the opportunity to know their father. Their dads were not confidants, baseball coaches or shoulders to cry on. Their dads, like Don Peterson, are now just granite names.

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Andrew Wiest is a professor of history at the University of Southern Mississippi and the author of “The Boys of ’67: Charlie Company’s War in Vietnam.”