Jim Rocha
99meso@gateway.net
Another Viet Vet

Santa Fe, NM, Doc.  We haven't forgotten any of you guys. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of all of you in some way or another. God bless you and I trust you are resting easy in His loving arms.
Wednesday, March 08, 2000

August 25, 2005

My name is Michael Steinberg and I'm writing to you from Connecticut. I got your names and email addresses from the LZ Russell site after searching for Don Walsh on the Vietnam Memorial website.

Don was one of my best friends in high school and the first truly free thinking person I ever knew. After high school we both went off to college and didn't see much of each other. Don was a briliant guy, but his parents were already paying for his older sister's college education, so he went off to the U of CT, and from what I heard he didn't like it and dropped out after one year.

My parents called me at college in Feb 69 to tell me Don had been killed in Vietnam. Until just recently I never knew just how or where or why he died. I knew that he either had joined up or been drafted, and had become a Navy medic. In high school we were Explorer Boy Scouts in the medical field and volunteered at the local hospital together.

I'm wondering if you folks knew Don during his days overseas, and if you have any personal knowledge of the last day of his life, what he was doing, and just how he died. The Wall site for him identifies his cause of death as from "Other Explosive Device."

I'm a writer of journalism and fiction and am writing a book right now which includes Don in it. The book is called "In My Father's Room: How War Changed Both Our Lives Forever." My father was a Marine WWII combat veteran who served 2+ years in the South Pacific. Several times before his death he told me he thought his WWII letters would make a good book. He wrote back to his family in CT almost daily from the time he started boot camp at Parris Island to the time of his return home. After his death 3 years ago I looked at his letters for the first time since my teenage years and decided to write a book including them, but also alternating chapters by me about our relationship, which became increasingly combative and troubled during my teen and 20s years, but was much resolved as we both got older.I  n the course of writing my part of the book I thought about Don a lot, how his life and death affected mine, and when I discovered the info on your and the Wall site, I realized that I still have a lot to learn, so I'm hoping you can teach me some more.

I also have pictures of Don from our high school yearbook that I can send to you if you give me a mailing address. Also if you don't want your names included in the book let me know and I'll certainly respect your wishes. If it's OK to use what you've posted on the site and anything else you want to tell me, let me know that too, and I'll include it without changing anything or editorializing.

Best to you , Michael Steinber