On Jan. 1, 1970, my dad, Gray Comer, landed back in the U.S. after a year in Vietnam.
Gray is the middle child of three brothers. His father, my late grandfather, was a career employee at RJR who’d been a Marine MP during World War II. Gray went to Wingate College for a year before transferring to Wake Forest, where his grades fell off far enough for him to lose his draft exemption. But Gray kept qualifying for officer training programs. At the time, the Army had a regulation that one couldn’t be deployed to Vietnam for less than 12 months. Gray was weeks away from the cutoff date that would’ve kept him home when, as he says, “The Army figured out was I was doing,” and off he went to Vietnam for the entire year of 1969.
Gray was 22, and a sergeant, leading other, younger men. He turned 23 in April; Arthur Cama, the man who took his place while Gray had a 24-hour liberty on his birthday, was killed by a sniper. Gray himself would sustain four wounds in his few months of active combat. He also rescued an Australian soldier (who gave Gray his uniform hat in appreciation – it’s still in his office) and saved the lives of several men, one of them a neighbor from back home, earning a Bronze Star.
Gray doesn’t brag about his service in Vietnam. His brothers, my mother, my sisters and I are in awe of the courage he showed, and the horrors he must have seen. But Gray de-emphasizes it, maybe preferring to let the rest of his life speak for itself. So, I will, too.
In the 40 years since Gray came home, he married, had two beautiful daughters (my sisters Karla and Julie); remarried my mom, welcoming my sister Maria and me into his heart; and had a fifth daughter, my sister Elizabeth. He finished college at Appalachian State, taught science in Winston-Salem public schools; went to work for the city as an arson investigator; then went into business for himself selling home fire protection. He went to Heaven-knows-how-many dance recitals, plays, softball and football games and Scout meetings, and later pinewood-derby races with his grandson. He danced at weddings (always shagging, no matter what the style of music playing). He loaned money to family and friends. He huddled outside on cold mornings before sunrise, thawing out the frozen water pump with a hair dryer so a certain middle child could wash her hair before school. He bought a lot of prom dresses and cars. He built a treehouse for his grandson. He buried his father, and visits his mother nearly every week.
He worked 60- and 80- hour weeks so his family could live in a gorgeous house and pay for college, still managing to find time to volunteer at his church and in his community. He’s always been the one people go to for advice, or a job, or a little extra money. He’s been there, always there, solid and uncomplicated, at least on the surface. But that short time in combat left an indelible mark. Gray can’t hear out of one ear, courtesy of a grenade that went off too close to him. He still has scars, and sometimes nightmares.
As I’ve gotten older and endured hard times of my own, I’ve gained a much greater appreciation for what it must have taken him to move through the trauma of combat to lead not just a productive life, but an extraordinary one. My sisters and I joke that the reason none of us are married is because we’ll never find a guy who’ll match our dad for honor and integrity.
I’m immensely proud of my dad’s service to his country. But I’m so much more proud of the love and support he’s shown his family and community over the ensuing four decades.
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