THE LAST DEAD HERO
My dad, Emmett Irvin Lamon served in WWII.
I had two brothers who were Marines. One of them served 4 years in the Marines. The other served 10 years in the Marines, then got out and joined the Navy spending 16 more years there.
Dad laughed a bit about spending time in Australia and Hawaii. But he never talked about his war experiences. My two brothers didn’t serve in wartime.
I am just 17 years old in the first picture. The second one is the last picture taken of me in uniform. I was also in the Marine Corps and served from 1965 to 1987 and was in Vietnam 66–67. I was an Ontos crewman and just another grunt in Vietnam. Ontos was a tracked vehicle, an anti tank weapon. We carried six 106 recoilless rifles, four .50 caliber spotting rifles (mounted on the top four main guns) and a browning air-cooled .30 caliber machine gun. We had a crew of three. It was originally developed for the army but they didn’t want it. Only 254 were ever built and they weren’t used after 1975. They were a lifesaver during the Tet offensive, especially in Hue City.
During my career, besides Vietnam I was in the Philippines, Hawaii, Thailand, Japan, and of course the United States on both coasts and in the interior. I retired as Master Sergeant.
One memory that has stayed with me is the loneliness I felt upon returning from overseas and the way we were treated upon returning home. That’s what the poem “The Asian Night” is about. That poem is what the impetus was for writing the book. My editor insisted this needed to be more than just a poem. There’s quite a story behind the writing of that book and holding onto it for almost 20 years before I’d let it go. It has to do with the poem at the end of it. My first love is lyrical poetry. Novel writing came about by accident but I love that too.
The strongest and most emotional memory (good one anyway) was graduation from Boot Camp when my drill instructor pinned on my eagle, globe and anchor and called me a Marine for the first time.
I have been writing since Junior High School, having authored over 100 lyrical poems, several songs, newspaper articles (in Japan) and currently completing another fiction novel in an entirely different genre. My father was the model for the father of the main character in my first book. My first book, THE LAST DEAD HERO is about a Vietnam Veteran and untreated PTSD. The Amazon link is https://www.amazon.com/LAST-DEAD-HERO-Robert-Lamon/dp/1434857387/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473554637&sr=1-1&keywords=Robert+Lamon
~ Robert Lamon, Vietnam Veteran USMC and author
Veteran Stories Compiled by Jenny La Sala
