THE WALL OF FACES

My name is Cindy Hadaway I have had Robert's POW/MIA bracelet since the 70's. I would like to send it to the family if they would like to have it. I have attached a picture of the bracelet.

i found this bracelet when I moved Ive had it for years - I am honored to wear it on my wrist today- to all that loved Robert my heart is with you

Bob was our class president in Boston High School in 1962. He was a very friendly, fine person always willing to help others whenever possible. Bob had a great talent for farming along with school work. 1969 was a very sad year and many hated the thought we would never meet him again at our class reunions. All gave some and some gave all. But as long as one remembers they are not forgotten. Bob, along with many others, have proven Freedom, Independence and Liberty are never free. Those of us must continue to fight for and maintain what others have done in their memory.

I have a bracelet that I've worn in remembrance of this veteran and would like to give it to the descendants of this honorable veteran if they are interested. I have had it since the early 70's.

My dad was a Lt. Col. in the USAF and a pilot. He retired in 1974 out of Langley in VA.

Please let me know via email if you are interested and I will be happy to mail.

I met Bob Kuhlman my sophomore year in college. He was a farm kid from east-central Indiana and a year ahead of me. He talked about pitching hay bales from a barn. Tulane was, in different dollars then but still, a very expensive school, and Bob needed a Navy scholarship to be there. He was an Engineering major.

I had joined our fraternity late the year before, and Bob loaned me his dedicated beer stein, a totem in that environment. It was inscribed with “The Rack”, Marinespeak for a bed, his favorite place.

At some point, we started running nights on the track behind the Sugar Bowl. He was a mid-distance guy, 880 yards. I ran sprints; I had no stamina. There was just something about the night air.

Bob was a “Marine option”, meaning after graduation he would enter the Corps as a Second Lieutenant, the grade with the shortest life expectancy “in country”. He would often say the running, the classwork, pretty much everything was just an exercise, because he’d be dead soon after graduation. Still, he ran.

I remember an intramural meet in which he represented the Navy. When the starters gun went off so did Bob. Before the end of the first of the two laps, he was already at least a hundred yards ahead, and no one was close. People watching around me laughed. They said there was no way he could maintain that pace. They said he was just a clown with a buzz cut. He seemed to grow only stronger and was pulling away at the finish and was standing at the side when second place and the rest came in.

We didn’t talk about it much, but for Bob the competition was never with others. It was with himself, with his own fast pace and high standards.

Bob graduated in the spring of 1966 and went MIA on the night of 17 January 1969 in the right seat of an A6A Intruder over enemy territory in the A Shau Valley of the meat grinder that was Vietnam. He was 24 years old.

I have told Bob’s story to both of my sons. I have told them to listen to their own hearts and not to let anyone tell them their limits. I have told them just to run.