She was a shy little girl. I think maybe she was the most shy little girl I had ever met. I don’t remember what her voice was like, but she had long straight brown hair and short bangs. I think sometimes she wore braids. I always imagined she would have such a pretty smile—if she ever smiled. I don’t remember ever seeing her smile. But it was a long time ago. Her name was Julie Kink, and it was 1969 and I was about to turn nine years old. It was getting to be winter in Wisconsin. We were in third grade. I can remember third grade pretty well. We all went to an elementary school together and we were growing up together. I don’t remember ever seeing Julie Kink smile, and I don’t remember her voice. That was 32 years ago.
Our librarian was Mrs. Smith. She lived a few blocks from where we did, and I used to walk by Mrs. Smith’s house on the way to school. It was across from a baseball diamond where the path to school left the road and headed across a meadow and into a valley, across a footbridge that spanned a creek that was never rushing nor dry, and into the woods next to the school. I always liked library time when I was in third grade. It was before the internet, when kids knew the Dewey decimal system and books had colored tape stripes on their spines so you could find the subject you wanted. We had to speak quietly in the school library. We never got homework from the librarian. It was a friendly place. I don’t remember exactly what we did there during library time each week.
It was starting to be winter that year. 1969. I don’t remember what parts of third grade occupied my mind back then. There is one day I had forgotten about for a long time. For about 32 years. It came back to me today.
I remembered Julie Kink.
Julie Kink wasn’t in library class that day. No big deal, we kids often were gone from school for a day or two in those almost-winter weeks when it got dark early. Seems like we always had strep throat. Seems like we were always getting penicillin shots, and we’d be cured of strep throat for about another week. Julie was not in library that day. Mrs. Smith was teaching us something about library. I think maybe she was reading us a book. We were all scattered around the room on the floor. She was sitting in a chair. She was reading and showing us pictures. I bet it was a book about winter or birds migrating or Indians at harvest time or something like that.
Julie wasn’t there. Mrs. Smith closed the book and then folded her hands and looked out across the room and a peculiar distance came into her eyes. I don’t think she was a very old lady, but she looked old just then. I’m not sure why the responsibility to tell us fell to her that day. It always seemed strange to me afterwards that Mrs. Smith was the one who told us. We never wondered about it then, but I wonder about it now. Why the librarian? Mrs. Smith sighed and quietly said that she needed us to listen to her now, and listen in a special way. It was usually quiet in the library. It was very quiet just then.
Mrs. Smith told us that Julie Kink would be gone for awhile. Julie needed to be away because a bad thing had happened in her family. I had never thought about whether Julie Kink had a family. I just wondered what she might look like if she smiled.
Mrs. Smith said Julie Kink had a brother who was on the crew of a helicopter. It took me a few moments to understand the pause that followed. Mrs. Smith looked off in that distant way again, and there was silence.
If you flew on a helicopter in 1969, it meant that you were a soldier in Vietnam. There was a war going on in 1969. I knew it because I saw pictures on the news every night. Walter Cronkite would report how many Americans had died that day. I was always amazed because he would report how many Americans our government said had died, and he would say how many Americans the enemy said had died, and the numbers were never the same.
Julie Kink wasn’t going to be at school for awhile because her brother had been killed in the war. Mrs. Smith said he was in a helicopter that had been in combat. She told us that there was a thing called an ammunition dump. She said his helicopter had gone over the ammunition dump when it exploded. I can still remember Mrs. Smith sitting there, her book closed on her lap, raising both arms slowly in the air as she described how the exploding ammunition had destroyed the helicopter with Julie Kink’s brother in it. They had crashed after they flew over the explosion. We sat silently. Looking back on it, I still think it was a remarkable moment—the school librarian in a little elementary school in Wisconsin telling us third graders about the idea of an ammunition dump, and why Julie Kink wasn’t going to be at school for awhile.
It was getting to be winter. 1969.
That was 32 years ago. I don’t exactly remember what happened to Julie Kink. I don’t recall if I ever saw her smile. She was really shy.
I thought of Julie Kink again today. I never expected to, but I did. I’m a grown-up now. I have a beautiful wife and two beautiful daughters. None of them are shy. One of my daughters is in third grade and it’s getting to be winter. I was thinking of them today because I miss them. I’m a grown-up and I get to travel sometimes and today I’m in Washington D.C., far from my home in Minnesota. I don’t come here to Washington very often. I think just three times in my life. I thought about Julie Kink today.
After all my grown-up meetings something told me to take a long walk and breathe the beautiful fall air in Washington D.C. I did. Something told me to walk the few miles from my hotel to see the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. I had been there once before, long ago, when the memorial was new and everyone was arguing about it. When I got there again today, it seemed smaller than I remembered. The trees were all grown. I passed through the monument path once, remembering the feelings I had felt the first time I visited. As I turned at the far end of the path beside the black, shiny marble wall, I saw the thick paper book listing all the names of the dead soldiers that were etched on the wall.
I thought of Julie Kink just then. I hadn’t thought of her for a long time. I began to wonder about her. Did she know her older brother very well when he went off to Vietnam? How much did he love his little sister?
Was he thinking about her and about our little town in those moments when an inferno was spreading out below him in the jungle in 1969?
It only took me a moment to find his name in the book. David Kink. Middleton, Wisconsin. Panel 20W, line 92. He had died in the Fall of 1969. There it was, right in the book. I thought about Julie Kink, and I thought about being in third grade and I headed back to the wall. I passed my fingers across the name on the wall. David Kink. I wondered if Julie Kink had ever stood there, now a grown-up, and touched those letters. I found myself praying. Our God lives outside of time. I prayed for David Kink, that he had trusted in Jesus Christ before the day he died. I prayed for Julie Kink and for her mom and dad. I prayed that their lives had been blessed and that they had been comforted and come to know Christ. Somehow.
I hadn’t thought of Julie Kink for a long time. She was really shy. I think maybe she was the most shy little girl I had ever met.
10.19.01
For a reading of this story in Washington D.C. by its main character, please look here.
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