Brian Kent McGar, by Marta V. Martinez
In the 1970s, the Vietnam War was raging on, and President Richard Nixon invaded Cambodia. On May 4th, students at Kent State University in Ohio staged protests, and when the Ohio National Guard was called in, guardsmen fired on the student protesters, killing four and injuring nine. Rallies, sit-ins, marches, and general civil unrest followed. That’s what life was all about at the time, when the War dominated every newspaper and media outlet in the country.
My family and I watched the nightly news with footage of towns being bombed and wounded soldiers being carried to nearby helicopters. At the end of each newscast, the names of the casualties that day or those Missing in Action scrolled slowly on the television screen, and we always checked carefully to see if we knew anyone. I wasn’t sure what I would do if I recognized someone. And I never did, and so they always remained just names.
As the 70s wore on, it seemed as if the world around me was falling further into a state of upheaval, and I was itching to express my opposition to the war. But what could a Mexican-American high school student with a strict cultural upbringing do? How could I join in the national protests to draw public attention to the prisoners and those missing in Vietnam without becoming fully embroiled in the controversy of the war itself?
The answers to my questions came soon after my friend Carmen walked into school one day wearing a shiny, silver bracelet around her wrist.
“It’s a POW-MIA bracelet,” she said.
On its front side, delicately engraved, were some letters and numbers. Carmen told me that the letters spelled the name of a neighbor who had been Missing in Action (MIA) in Vietnam for over a year; the numbers were the date when he went missing. Carmen was wearing it as a way to shine a light, to support the family next door.
I thought it was cool, and I wanted one. When I asked where she got it, Carmen said that she could get me one. I gave her $2.50, and a week later, in history class, she handed me a plastic bag with a silver bracelet in it.
When I put it on, I ran my fingers on the smooth surface and felt the embossed letters on it. They read: “Pfc. Brian Kent McGar * 5-31-67.”
The date inscribed on it struck me: 1967 was eight years ago. Eight years had already passed since the person whose name was on the bracelet had gone missing.
The day I received the bracelet happened to be the same day of an implosion of a building across from my school. We all ran to a window to watch. I remember the excitement the students all felt when we learned about this, and then hearing the loud “BOOM” of the building as it imploded.
After we all sat back in our seats, I played with the bracelet on my wrist and thought about Bryan Kent McGar. I imagined the sound of gunfire, the loud BOOMs in Vietnam that Private Brian must have heard every day.
That night, when I watched the news, I looked for his name – Brian had suddenly become a person and not just a name on a bracelet. And so had the names that scrolled on the television screen at the end of the newscast.