HOST: [00:00:05] Doctor Lori Goss-Reaves grew up with no doubts about her parents love for each other and for her – none. That love was thoroughly documented and continues to inform and inspire Lori more than 50 years later.

LARRY JO GOSS (RECORDING): [00:00:20] This tape is really, really does wonders. I can hear your voice again and it really makes me feel good

MARTY GOSS (RECORDING): [00:00:25] . Nothing has any meaning when you’re not here. But I can’t wait until [00:00:30] we’re together. We sure will have a lot to be happy for then.

LARRY JO GOSS (RECORDING): [00:00:34] I carry a picture of you and Lori in the little pocket of my flight jacket. All around with me all the time.

HOST: [00:00:41] But as much as that love was a certainty, the circumstances of her father’s death in Vietnam remained a mystery for decades.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:00:49] I had to find out what really happened to him, and I never expected to find out what I found. Never.

HOST: [00:00:56] In her new book, Kiss Lori for Me, Lori celebrates [00:01:00] her parents inspiring love story and reveals what she uncovered in her search for the truth about how her father died on Valentine’s Day, 1968.

LARRY JO GOSS (RECORDING): [00:01:10] If anything happens. You probably have a closed-casket funeral because these VC are really butchers.

HOST: [00:01:17] Lori’s journey would twist and turn over the course of several years. She would interview 29 veterans, many of whom were on Valentine’s Ridge, and she would climb that ridge herself twice.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:01:30] And [00:01:30] that was the hardest ten days I think I’ve ever faced.

HOST: [00:01:38] Stick around. From the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, founders of The Wall. This is Echoes of the Vietnam War. I’m your host, Michael Croan, bringing you stories of service, sacrifice, and healing from people who still feel the impact [00:02:00] of that conflict… Nearly 50 years later. This is Episode 36, “Kiss Lori for Me.” The third Friday in September is National POW/MIA [00:02:30] Recognition Day. According to the National League of POW/MIA families, there are still more than 1500 Americans missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. Senior Corpsman HM2 Larry Jo Goss was said to be missing in action for 21 days in 1968. What really happened to him took years of research to uncover and is the subject of “Kiss Lori for Me,” a new book by Larry Joe’s daughter, Lori Jo. The [00:03:00] book also chronicles the love story between Larry Jo and his wife Marty, who had only 11 months of wedded bliss together before Larry Jo left for Vietnam. Their daughter, Dr. Lori Goss-Reaves, begins their story in a small town in Indiana.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:03:24] Marion, Indiana is a fairly small town north of Indianapolis, Indiana, and [00:03:30] so I currently still live in the same town where my dad was born. And part of that is because my mom lives here, and I feel a very strong responsibility to her. Also, living here has connected me to places where my dad lived and walked and and went to school. Within five minutes from where I work, at a university called Indiana Wesleyan University, I can drive to the house where my dad grew up. My dad’s grave is within [00:04:00] ten minutes from where I currently work. Uh, the house where my mom and I lived when he was in Vietnam. All very close by. I am a licensed clinical social worker, so I had the opportunity to go into a school that I know he attended and help kids like my dad. My dad grew up, uh, with a single mom. Uh, not having any male role models in his life, not having any father figures in his life. Grew up in generational poverty, um, [00:04:30] and I helped those kids in the school setting, and I would walk up the banister, and I would, I would kind of touch the rail… And just the thought that my dad walked these halls, my dad touched this banister. All of those things were needed within my soul to connect me to him.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:04:52] What I know about him? Um, every every single person talks about the smile on his face that even though he grew [00:05:00] up in difficult circumstances, he had a positive outlook. Uh, a cheerful disposition, uh, very kind, uh, very smart. School came easy to him. His sister will say, uh, that she had to study hard, but that grades came very easy to my dad.

HOST: [00:05:20] Mhm. Mhm. And, and. Uh what year did he graduate high school?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:05:24] 1964 from Marion High School which is… literally, I can [00:05:30] walk there. It’s it’s five minutes from where I currently am.

HOST: [00:05:33] Growing up, you must have known adults who knew your father.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:05:38] You, yes, you would think so… But honestly, most of them were only within our family. I did not get connected to the people he went to school with until much later in life, actually in my adulthood.

HOST: [00:05:51] So he graduated high school in 1964. Did he go straight into the military?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:05:57] No. My dad wanted to go to college, [00:06:00] after high school, but he didn’t have the money to do so. And so he lived with his sister Mona, and worked at a factory to save money for college, and then thought that he was going, uh, actually was accepted to Ball State University, paid his $10 deposit. However, uh, a draft notice came in the mail. My dad was shocked to receive that draft notice because he thought he was going to Ball State. He wanted to be a medical doctor, and [00:06:30] had saved enough money, had it in the bank and was just waiting. He was going to to join, um, or start, in the, in one of the quarters in 1966. And when the draft notice came, he was shocked because he had given his mom $35 that was owed, another admissions deposit, and she never took it to Ball State, um, as she had told him that she did, as, as he entrusted her to do. And [00:07:00] he thought there had to be some sort of a mistake. And so he went to the draft, he wrote it, the letter to the draft board, asking them to, to correct that and to give him that college deferment and they denied that.

HOST: [00:07:10] If that $35 had found its way to Ball State, your dad would have been deferred?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:07:16] He would have had a college deferment. Absolutely. Yeah.

HOST: [00:07:18] When did he have to report?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:07:21] Yeah. So he was supposed to report January 20th, 1966. He enlisted in the Navy, and he was [00:07:30] told that he could get his medical training by being a Navy corpsman and then would have money to go to school.

HOST: [00:07:37] After Larry enlisted in the Navy, he had 90 days before he had to report. He eventually quit the factory and spent his last three weeks of freedom working for his aunt and uncle, who owned a bowling alley in a little town called Gas City, Indiana. Marty worked at a bank in Gas City, and as it happens, she participated in a bowling league. So during that short three week window, Larry and [00:08:00] Marty found each other.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:08:02] She was bowling in this league after work. So he comes over to take the, uh, drink order from everyone that was in that little bowling group of my mom’s. And as he walked away, a lady by the name of Dorothy Winter says to my mother, do you know he likes you? And my mom was oblivious. She actually had a boyfriend at the time. And so when my dad came back, he said to her, you know, I don’t [00:08:30] have a lot of time. I’m going to be leaving for the Navy for for boot camp. But if you’d like to improve your game, I can give you some bowling lessons. And that’s how it all began.

HOST: [00:08:42] Bowling lessons.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:08:43] Yeah.

HOST: [00:08:44] Wow. Yeah. And she wasn’t, uh, insulted at the, uh, implication that her game needed improving.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:08:51] Well, I think she knew it did. But the really amazing part to me is she went home and broke up with her boyfriend that night.

HOST: [00:08:58] Larry and Marty [00:09:00] were inseparable from that point until the day he left for boot camp at Great Lakes. When he graduated from boot camp in July of ’66, Marty was there.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:09:09] She and his sister went went to that graduation. And I have this video of my dad and mom having this incredibly beautiful kiss, standing by the car at his boot camp graduation. I mean, their love is just so documented and what a gift to me.

HOST: [00:09:29] So after [00:09:30] he graduated from boot camp, uh, what happened then?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:09:34] So, uh, he proposed pretty quickly. He had enough money for a ring, so I’ve got to get the dates straight in my head. Uh, July 13th, her calendar says Larry proposed, and then July 14th, it says got engaged. And the way that that happened is that my dad got down on one knee and proposed. And then the next day, [00:10:00] he and she went and picked out the ring, a ring that I currently still wear every day.

HOST: [00:10:05] Uh, they set a date.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:10:06] Presumably they did October 8th, 1966. Okay. And it coincided with my dad’s leave from core school.

HOST: [00:10:14] Gotcha.

HOST: [00:10:16] So they’re planning to get married in October. Your father received orders in September.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:10:22] So it’s the following September. They got married October 8th of 1966. Okay. I was born July 25th of 1967, [00:10:30] and he received his orders September 13th of 1967.

HOST: [00:10:36] I mean, I just can’t imagine what that was like for him and for your mom also.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:10:41] Right.

HOST: [00:10:41] Where were they living?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:10:43] Uh, North Chicago.

HOST: [00:10:44] Okay.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:10:45] They had a 11 months of of this beautiful time with just the two of them. And, you know, my dad writes about what it was like to be a dad. And so he experienced so much in the short amount of time. [00:11:00] And then those orders came and he had a really fast, uh, hard decision to make. And that was what to do with my mom and I.

HOST: [00:11:07] Larry wasn’t about to leave his young family alone in Chicago. Before he left for Field Medical School, he moved Marty and Lori back to Marion into an apartment owned by his Aunt Marge and Uncle Russ. After Larry completed Field Medical School, he came home for 30 days before leaving for Vietnam.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:11:26] My mom said that they made the most of every moment. They had their little apartment [00:11:30] above the garage. And, uh, she scheduled our first professional photograph, our family photo together. Uh, they they went and played cards with friends. Um, according to my mom, they just lived like a year’s worth of life in that in that 30 days, they celebrated Christmas, December 14th, uh, right before he left.

HOST: [00:11:55] So he got to Vietnam sometime in December?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:11:59] Yeah, I believe [00:12:00] it was December 24th.

HOST: [00:12:02] Oh, man.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:12:05] Yeah.

HOST: [00:12:07] And this is right before the Tet Offensive?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:12:10] Yeah. The most deadly time.

HOST: [00:12:12] Mhm.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:12:21] My dad arrived in Vietnam higher in rank than a lot of corpsmen. And so he was an HM2 and [00:12:30] the senior corpsman of Kilo 3/9. On February 14th, they left Ca Lu on a mission to go find out where the mortar was or multiple mortars that were being fired at [00:13:00] them into the Ca Lu combat base, and they found the North Vietnamese Army up on that ridge. And, um, the Captain and the Lieutenant both became unable to to lead. Uh, the captain was mortally wounded. Died two days later. Uh, and when I say, when I say Lieutenant, I mean the I mean the XO and the CO. So the, um, the [00:13:30] Lieutenant couldn’t give orders either, and there was really mass confusion. There were three other lieutenants on that ridge. Lieutenant of first platoon, second platoon, and third platoon. There was also a weapons platoon there, and a lot of a lot of chaos. And in the midst of that, uh, my Dad was treating Marines that were wounded, um, prior to the Captain, uh, and and Lieutenant being unable to lead, [00:14:00] there was, um, a man by the name of Cameron Carter who lives in Illinois.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:14:05] And Cameron had his arm shot, uh, a couple his arm was shot enough that he was he was wounded pretty bad. And so a man by the name of Marty Russell, “Doc” Marty Russell, who was the corpsman for third platoon and Cameron was in third platoon, went up to treat Cameron. And my dad came up from the rear where the CP [00:14:30] group was and actually helped Marty Russell save Cameron Carter’s life. Then the XO and CO were wounded and some men just got off the ridge, and some helped the wounded and some didn’t know what to do. Some ended up spending the night all night long there. But my dad. We know responded to the call of corpsman up. A man by the name of Frederick Bungartz was injured and, [00:15:00] I don’t know who, uh, called for help, but my dad responded and was hit by two grenades. And according to the person that gave that missing in action report information, no signs of life were found after that.

HOST: [00:15:19] The most difficult part of the story is, um, there’s a considerable gap between what was happening on that ridge and what was being communicated [00:15:30] to your mother back home?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:15:31] Yes. Yeah, that’s that’s a hard part still. My mother said that she was upstairs in our apartment and that she never picked up the landline telephone, which belonged to Marge and Russ. Ever. The phone rang and for some reason she picked it up. She still says she doesn’t know why. And on the other line she heard, uh, harry Goss, my dad’s father, telling my Uncle Russ [00:16:00] that my dad was missing. The reason that Harry got the information first is that my dad’s half brother worked on the Indianapolis Police Department, and so it came across to him first, and he called his dad and said, “Call Uncle Russ,” you know, so that so that he’s prepared when when Marty gets the news. And so my mom got the news that way. She said that she screamed, dropped the phone, and that I started crying. Um, that’s how my mom [00:16:30] found out that my dad was missing in action. And then, you know, two men in uniform came to the door. She said later that day to give her the news that he was missing in action. The first telegram indicated that my Dad might have been taken by hostile forces. And so I really grew up. Believing that was true. Wishing that was true. And thinking my Dad was going to come home. Which I think complicated my grief. [00:17:00]

HOST: [00:17:09] Lori would eventually come to learn what actually happened on Valentine’s Ridge. After interviewing 29 Vietnam veterans, several of whom were there.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:17:27] Um, for 21 days, my Dad and nine Marines [00:17:30] laid on Valentine’s Ridge, their bodies decaying away, and, the Marines that I have found said that they wanted desperately to go retrieve those bodies, but for various reasons they were not allowed to. Finally, on March the 5th, a recon team named Delmar was ordered to go retrieve the remains. And so my dad’s remains were, uh, they were found and whatever was left of them, which couldn’t have been much, [00:18:00] uh, were brought back down on March the 6th from that ridge and shipped back to the Indianapolis airport. My mom documented those days in the most heart-wrenching letter to my dad, which is in the book. I don’t know how she did it. She’s clearly very strong. Um, but she kept praying that God would help them find Larry. The telegram actually said that a search team was looking for my dad. None of that is accurate, [00:18:30] but I want to be very, very respectful. And I spent hours agonizing on what to put in the book and what to leave out. Because I really love our country, and I really believe in our military, and I and I know that without a body, that’s probably what they had to say. And so I don’t have any any negative feelings about that. I just know that my mom suffered unnecessary pain and suffering, and not just her…

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:18:57] I have found several of the family members of [00:19:00] those nine Marines that were also there on that ridge for 21 days, and and I’ve been able to help them know what really happened, because they had those same telegrams and they had that same hope…

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:19:24] Five of them were listed as KIA “Body Not Recovered.” Five of them [00:19:30] were listed as MIA. And so what I have come to understand is that. The men were killed on February 14th. About 30 Marines spent the night on the ridge, led by Lieutenant Dan Wszolek and a man by the name of Captain [William] Conger, who recently passed away. He and Dan Wszolek together the next morning, led those men up the hill and took the hill, and the NVA left. That’s on the 15th. [00:20:00] My understanding is that a helicopter came in to to pick up the dead, and it was shot down. And that on the 15th, when Captain Conger and Lieutenant Dan Wszolek asked for help to bring the wounded, everybody but one person is, my understanding, was wounded on the 15th, and that assault up the ridge that that they asked for India Company to come help them, and that only [00:20:30] one platoon from India Company was sent. And so they could only bring back the wounded. Somewhere in the midst of that, on the 14th or 15th, five of those dog tag numbers were called in.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:20:43] So for five of the families they knew KIA – Body Not Recovered, but for the other five for for whatever reason, we still don’t know why…. Uh, I believe that they, they lived what we lived, because my [00:21:00] mom was highly advised to not open up the casket. Okay. Um, Frederick Bungartz’s family told me that. That their dad made the decision that their uncle could open the casket and view the remains, and that the smell of formaldehyde was so strong that he couldn’t look for very long. But he did say to the family that that he could he could tell that it was Frederick, or thought that it was, and that there was a chest wound. So, so for that family, they had that information. [00:21:30] And the mother still set by the television, hoping Frederick would walk off the plane because… Accepting something like that is so hard to do, right? That her son, right that my mom’s husband really were in a casket, unrecognizable for the most part. it’s hard for the brain to wrap itself around that. And so I think humans. Hang on to Hope. [00:22:00] I think it helps them not have to swallow all of the bitterness of grief at one time.

HOST: [00:22:11] Grieving and afraid and so young, Marty focused what energy she could muster on little Laurie. In October, the two moved out of the apartment above the garage and rented their own place.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:22:24] She had a birthday in January, and she talks about driving to see my Dad at his grave that day. [00:22:30] It was snowy. Um, her mom had a party for her. She just wanted my Dad. And so. So I know for my Mom, it was her and I living in this apartment and her really not knowing what she was going to do with her life.

HOST: [00:22:45] How does Marty at this point?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:22:47] 23, I believe.

HOST: [00:22:48] Oh good God.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:22:50] 23 or 24.

HOST: [00:22:52] So what did she do?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:22:55] Um. She [00:23:00] talks to me about, um, having a shrine set up for my Dad in her home. Uh, she talks to me about taking me to the cemetery often. Um, I have pictures of me there, um, at every every age of my life. Uh. I think she just held on to him and just kept loving him, and [00:23:30] I think she poured all her love for him into me and, uh, making sure that she passed his legacy on so that in, in her own mind, uh, he really didn’t have to die. I think I was this living, breathing piece of him that she devoted her life to as a way of showing him, I think, how much she loved him and still does to this day.

HOST: [00:23:56] Was Marty working during this time? I mean, how’s she getting by? [00:24:00]

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:24:00] Yeah. Um, my Mom had my Dad’s, um, life insurance, $10,000. And, um, my Dad’s father borrowed some of it. Um, but my mom used the rest of it for us to live, and she was not working at the time. Um. And then, later, um, not much later, she ends up, um, finding [00:24:30] someone and they together had a child. And so she married him.

HOST: [00:24:38] And so you grew up with that? Uh….

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:24:40] Um, they divorced when I was four, and I did grow up with that half brother. Um, and so when they divorced, um, my mom was a single mom raising my half brother and I. And at that point, she worked at Kmart and, uh, in the evenings. And she used some of my dad’s life insurance to buy us a house. [00:25:00] And my mom was an incredible single mom, but she had a lot of guilt about leaving us with babysitters or not finding good babysitters. And those period, that period was harder for her than I realized. Um, but my mother will tell you, she couldn’t take my half brother’s dad away. And so she remarried him when I was ten. Um, and they’re they’re still married today.

HOST: [00:25:24] Still married today?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:25:26] They are.

HOST: [00:25:26] Wow. How did your father’s absence define your [00:25:30] experience?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:25:32] Uh, what I remember is going to school for the first time and being afraid that something was going to happen to my Mom while I was there, because in my mind, she was all I had. First grade. I think it’s when kids start talking about, you know, like, “my dad’s got big muscles” and, you know, your dad, you know, talking about our dads, but I didn’t have a dad to talk about. And I think first grades, [00:26:00] the first time I remember feeling like I’m really different. And especially on Valentine’s Day, I’ll never forget Valentine’s Day party, my first grade year, and we’re passing out Valentines and I, and all I remember is I started to cry. And I. I also remember a little boy saying to me that I didn’t have a dad. Uh, I was crying and and my teacher that whole year, you know, told my [00:26:30] Mom I should go see a counselor. And, you know, I didn’t. But there was something going on in that first grade year. And so, uh, it was this, this sense of what am I supposed to feel on Valentine’s Day? Everybody seems to be happy and they’re playing, or they’re passing out cards. But my Dad died this day. What am I supposed to feel?

HOST: [00:26:50] And in your your school age years, you never ran into any other Gold Star kids?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:26:57] No, honestly, [00:27:00] I didn’t think there were very many people like me. Um, and then I found out about Sons and Daughters In Touch. I believe it was 1992 or 3. I saw this magazine article that mentioned Sons and Daughters In Touch, and I thought, there are other people like me somewhere who also lost their dad in Vietnam. But but I didn’t get involved. I just decided that I’d I’d figure that out someday. And so, uh, I’ve since met many of them, but not at all when I was growing up. [00:27:30]

HOST: [00:27:31] In 1982, when Laurie was 15 years old, her high school planned a trip to Washington, D.C. despite the cost, Marty found a way to send Laurie and her stepbrother. At the time the itinerary was being planned, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial had not yet been completed, and so it wasn’t on the agenda. But Marty knew that The Wall would be dedicated by the time the kids got there. She reached out to Laurie’s school principal, who made sure the stop was included so that Laurie could see her father’s name.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:28:00] The [00:28:00] Wall was just the first time I ever remember my peers then kind of understanding it. The peers that were with me on that trip then had a different maybe a view of “Lori without a dad,” right? I was “Lori Who Didn’t Have a dad,” but that year I was “Lori Who had a Dad That Gave His Life For Our Country. And that’s a whole different perspective.

HOST: [00:28:31] Let’s [00:28:30] talk about the book.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:28:34] Okay.

HOST: [00:28:35] Um, what, what triggered it? I mean, you’re clearly highly educated and highly capable of writing a really compelling book, but so are a lot of people who don’t write books. Yeah.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:28:46] Somebody had to do it. Its memory deserved that. And growing up. Um. I had those letters. His letters to my mom. And [00:29:00] I really couldn’t read them. They’re really still pretty sad and had these audio tapes that he sent to her from Vietnam. When I was 18, I was accepted to Ball State University, just like my Dad, and my mom paid a neighbor to take all those audio tapes and put them onto a cassette tape. And I remember….

HOST: [00:29:25] Becausethey were reel to reel before that?

HOST: [00:29:27] Yes, yes.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:29:29] And so I never got to hear [00:29:30] them, right? I remember putting that cassette tape in my car, and I heard my dad’s voice for the first time, and I had to pull over and cry.

LARRY JO GOSS (RECORDING): [00:29:42] Tell her Dad’s thinking about her all the time, and he loves her very much. And he loves he loves her Mom, too. I haven’t told you too much of that. I’ve been trying to answer all these questions, but I love you very much, and I miss you a great deal. And I look at your pictures all the time. So, uh, I’m thinking about you all the time, and tape’s getting about ready to run out, so, uh, I’ll say goodbye for now. And you [00:30:00] be good. And I love you very much. And tell everybody I’m fine here, and I’m fine here. And, uh, don’t worry about anything, because I’m okay. And, uh, I’ll let you know if anything goes wrong or anything like that. So, uh, bye bye. And I love you very much, darling. Kiss Lori for me and sleep warm.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:30:20] I still cannot listen to his voice without crying. I [00:30:30] think I knew from my family that I was at least going to put it in a book. I didn’t think I was going to put it in a book for other people to read. That came way later. Um, but their love story, their legacy of love, I believe we need to hear how do we love people better? We [00:31:00] are called to love each other well, and my Mom and Dad did that in a way that I had to share it with the world.

HOST: [00:31:08] After a short break, Laurie talks about the odyssey of researching and writing a book about her father, and of the deep connections and shocking discoveries she made along the way. Stick around. This [00:31:30] year, we’re celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. To commemorate this milestone, every day at 3 p.m. eastern, we read the name of every Wall honoree who died on that date. This is in addition to the live, in-person reading of the names that will be held in Washington, D.C., beginning on November 7th. You can visit vvmf.org/rotn for more information about the daily virtual reading of the names and about the in-person event. [00:32:00] Look, we know it isn’t easy for everybody to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. And that’s exactly why VVMF created The Wall That Heals, an exact replica of The Wall at three-quarter scale that travels to communities all across America. The Wall That Heals and the Mobile Education Center that travels with it will be in Middletown, New York, September 15th through 18, and Bedford, Massachusetts, September 22nd through 25. To see the rest of this year’s [00:32:30] tour schedule, and to learn how you can bring the wall that heals to your town, visit vvmf.org.

HOST: [00:32:36] For 40 years, VVMF has led the way to help heal our nation, remember those who gave all and honor all who served. Our legacy endowment will ensure that we can continue honoring Vietnam veterans for the next 40 years and beyond. We launched the Legacy Endowment with a $500,000 matching gift campaign, the Legacy Challenge. [00:33:00] Each new outright gift or gift established through a will will be matched up to 50 percent, with a maximum of $50,000 matched per gift. All qualifying gifts established or newly identified before November 12th of this year are eligible for the match. Learn more at vvmf.org/legacy. When [00:33:30] Lori Goss-Reaves set out to write a book about her father, she couldn’t have imagined where that process would take her. Start with the fog of war. Add in incident reports written in the midst of chaos based on sometimes conflicting accounts, stir in the jungles way of reclaiming all the tracks made by men and simmer for 40 or 50 years. Somewhere in that stew is the truth. But how can you separate it well enough to identify it?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:34:00] That [00:34:00] task was not really in the sense of writing the book. It was finding out what happened to my Dad. Because when I grew up, his mother said to me, well, you know, Lori, your dad’s not really, really buried at the I.O.F. Cemetery. You know, I wanted your mom to open the casket, and she refused. And so I went to the funeral home, and they opened the casket, and there was nothing in there. She told me that on my 16th birthday, my Dad’s grandma would say she didn’t really believe that he was dead. And so I wasn’t [00:34:30] convinced that, that those pieces of paper that we had contained the story of what really happened to my dad. I mean, I read through them all. But there were so many missing pieces. I really believe I had to find out for him, for my mom, for myself, what really happened to him. And I never expected to find out what I found. Never. And in researching [00:35:00] my Dad’s story, I found some things that were pretty painful to find out about choices made on the battlefield, and I chose to leave those out of the book. And I’m glad I did. But what I found out was that there were there were some real heroes up there. And we have to honor them. We [00:35:30] have to tell their stories. We have to understand that these men were young. They faced really horrific decisions, and they did some incredibly noble things. We owe them a whole lot. And, uh. So I don’t know. That’s what this book became. It became much more than my Dad’s story. It became their story.

HOST: [00:35:55] And was that the biggest surprise for you in writing the book? That the scope of it became [00:36:00] so, so much broader than you intended?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:36:03] The biggest surprise, it was my that was that my Dad died trying to save the life of a wounded Marine. I had no idea.

MARTY GOSS (RECORDING): [00:36:08] You had no idea?

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:36:09] Absolutely not. I was told, um, by some men who were there, that my Dad was killed instantly when the mortar came in. I was told that my Dad, the XO and the CO were looking at a map and that the mortar landed on top of them, instantly [00:36:30] killing all of them. I had no reason to think that that story wasn’t what happened until a man by the name of Ray Felle, who was a corpsman, connected me to Doc, to “Doc” Marty Russell. In 2007, I turned 40. And my husband, to my surprise, bought plane tickets for my ten-year-old daughter and I to fly to Orlando, Florida to a [00:37:00] Kilo 3/9 Vietnam Veterans Reunion. I had connected via the internet with some of the men that served with my dad, but I had not met them face to face. They’d invited me to reunions, and I chose not to go just because I thought my kids needed me at home. But once Eric bought the tickets, Courtney and I were on our way. One of them, by the name of Ray, met us at the airport, took us to the reunion, and at that reunion, the men from first platoon: Zeke, Ray and Jed, [00:37:30] took me under their wing.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:37:32] I expected to be an outsider. I really was, in my own mind… And they treated me like I was one of them… And I did not expect that. They, too, had heard that story, that my Dad was killed instantly when the mortar landed on the XO, the CO, and allegedly the senior corpsman. I had no reason to not think that that was accurate. Um, except that years [00:38:00] prior, around 2000, Ray had connected me to Doc Marty Russell and I only talked to Doc Russell one time, and that’s a regret of mine. I didn’t want to upset him, and he seemed like talking about the story of what happened was pretty difficult for him. But in that one conversation, I wrote down every word he said. And Doc Marty Russell said that my Dad was alive [00:38:30] when the mortars landed and that my Dad helped him treat the XO and the CO, and I couldn’t piece together how both both couldn’t be true, and I didn’t know what to do with that. And Doc Russell passed away two years later, so I couldn’t call him back. And so I had these two stories existing in my mind. And then, I connected with Dan Wszolek, the lieutenant of third [00:39:00] platoon. We connected by email around 2010, but he opened up to me about everything that happened, 2019 or so, and Dan Wszolek said that it was he who was looking at the map with the XO and the CO when the mortar did land basically right in the middle of them. He somehow moved his body down to a lower part [00:39:30] of the ridge, thus the mortar not hitting him entirely, I’m sure some fragments, but, so, so the person that was supposedly my Dad was Dan Wszolek. So then I had to figure out then where was my Dad when all of this was going on? Again, and I don’t know why. I always said I had to go to Vietnam. That one day I was going to go to Vietnam, and so… My [00:40:00] baby, youngest of five, graduated in 2018, so I just set that as the date that I was going to go. I just knew at that point there would be no more school activities…. Ya see, because my Dad missed every activity of my life. I couldn’t bring myself to miss a single one! I couldn’t go to Vietnam until they were all graduated.

HOST: [00:40:25] Having finally made the decision to visit Vietnam, Lori had to figure out a way to fund the trip. [00:40:30] She applied for a scholarship from the Lilly Faculty Development Fund, which required her to do some academic research in return for funding. She proposed to study the Two Sides project, which brings together sons and daughters whose fathers were killed while fighting on either side of the Vietnam War. But of course, while she was there, Lori’s personal objective was to climb Valentine’s Ridge, where her father had died 50 years earlier.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:40:57] December 2018. My dad’s [00:41:00] battalion surgeon, Dr. Jerry Behrens, his wife Mary, a nurse who had been to Vietnam 13 times to train Vietnamese nurses, my husband and I met in Vietnam. They flew from Casper, Wyoming. We flew from Indianapolis, Indiana, with two purposes: one to complete the research; and two, to climb Valentine’s Ridge. I knew if I could just climb the ridge [00:41:30] and see with my own eyes, that I would have a better chance of putting the stories together in a way that was accurate and true. Because all I care about is accurate and true, right? There is no space in my life for anything except the truth about my Dad, because that’s all I have. And so we went. And that was the hardest ten days I think I’ve maybe ever faced. Um, I don’t even think the book did [00:42:00] justice to my emotions on that trip. Jerry Behrens and Mary were incredible. My husband was incredible. We got to go up the ridge, but we couldn’t find a path. We got to have an incredible ceremony where butterflies appeared. But I didn’t get to see with my own eyes everything that I needed to see. However. In the airport on our way home. Jerry Behrens, I find [00:42:30] out, is connected to a man by the name of John Edwards.

HOST: [00:42:35] Laurie had seen a John Edwards quoted in an earlier newspaper article about Valentine’s Ridge, but of course she had no idea how to track down that specific John Edwards. Sitting in the airport with Jerry Behrens, she notices him doing something on Facebook. And there on Jerry’s screen is that name again, John Edwards. When Laurie gets home, she contacts John Edwards through their mutual connection to Jerry Behrens.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:43:00] And [00:43:00] John Edwards led me to the truth about that story. He passed away this past January, but John Edwards invited me to go with him to Vietnam in July of 2019. Now, keep in mind, I had just been there in December. I really experienced something with my Dad in December that I have never experienced before. It was a presence I have never felt. I didn’t want to go back really again [00:43:30] because I was afraid I wouldn’t feel that again. But John Edwards was on Valentine’s Ridge. He was a radio comm chief, and he volunteered to go on that patrol. And I thought, when am I ever going to have the opportunity to go walk that ridge with someone who was there? And so my son Casey had wanted to go with us the first time, but he was in college, so this one happened to be in the summer. And John said to me, we could go up Valentine’s Ridge [00:44:00] on my Dad’s birthday, July the 7th. And so I knew I had to say yes. John Edwards story, John Edwards account, talks about seeing a corpsman tending to a Marine that was wearing a radio after the mortars came in. That Marine died, and John approached the corpsman to get the [00:44:30] radio because he was trying to get something to communicate back to Ca Lu. It was I know it was dusk, I know that. But John said that he he was physically like right there with that corpsman. Didn’t know them, didn’t know any of them. John wasn’t in Kilo. He was he was a comm chief. But John said that as the corpsman helped him take that radio off this marine who was gone, that the corpsman wept. [00:45:00] Now, John told me this story on the telephone in 2019. I called my mom and I said, mom, would my Dad have cried? And she said yes. And I started thinking, like, I don’t know if that was my Dad, I have no idea. But this would have been the first person my Dad would have worked on that would have died. It. It could have been him. And so, I had to find more people.

HOST: [00:45:38] Right [00:45:30] around that time the COVID lockdowns began. Having been sent home by her university in March, Laurie spent the next several months poring through all of the information she had collected so far, looking for new avenues and new connections to explore. She was able to find more men through a group called Buddy Finder, and her journey of discovery continued. [00:46:00]

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:46:00] And then through Facebook, I found a man named Arthur Sayward, who was the second person who told me he saw my Dad’s dead body on that ridge, first being Doc Marty Russell, second being Arthur Sayward. And as I put all those accounts together, just like qualitative research classes taught me how to do, I was able to look at. The accounts of all ten that died and the five that were MIA. And how were [00:46:30] they killed, and finding a personal account about each one of them. And that only left my Dad and Frederick Bungartz. I’ll never forget the way I felt when it was like, clear to me that Frederick Bungartz had to be the person my Dad was, was working on when he was killed. And then, Arthur Sayward’s story matched up with Doc Russell’s. Doc Russell’s story from 2000. So many years ago, Arthur Sayward and Doc Russell’s story matched up. My Dad really [00:47:00] was killed after the mortars. Trying to save the life of a wounded Marine. I didn’t ever expect to know that. I didn’t ever expect… I didn’t even expect that that happened. Um. My mom was told that he died instantly, right? Most people would prefer to believe that he didn’t suffer.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:47:23] My story is not what I would have wanted to find. I know it’s true. He was hit [00:47:30] by two grenades. He may be suffering. He maybe knew. I don’t know, but the, the truth is, he did what corpsman are trained to do? He, in the midst of being placed in harm’s way, made the choice to try to save the life of one of his Marines.

LORI GOSS-REAVES: [00:48:19] This [00:48:00] book would not be possible if it wasn’t for the Vietnam veterans who chose to tell their stories to me. I can’t thank them enough. [00:48:30] Um, I could list them and I would leave someone out, and I would hate that. But they know who they are. And I think they know that they helped this corpsman’s daughter love herself better. And really know that, uh, her Dad would be proud of her as much as she’s proud of him. And so to the men of first [00:49:00] platoon, second platoon, and third platoon of Kilo 3/9, I will forever carry you in my heart.

HOST: [00:49:36] Dr. [00:49:30] Lori Goss Reaves. Her father, Larry Jo Goss, is listed on The Wall at Panel 39 East, Line 32. You can read the entire story in her book “Kiss Lori For Me,” which is available at Amazon.com. Also, just a friendly reminder that all of the interviews we publish here on the podcast are heavily edited for time. If you ever want to hear one of these conversations in its entirety, [00:50:00] you can find most of them on our YouTube channel. We’ll be back in two weeks with more stories of service, sacrifice and healing. See you then.

Full Interview with Dr. Lori Goss Reaves

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