Telling Their Stories on Memorial Day

The living can bring back the dead. 

Seventy-eight-year-old Barney Tharp of Lebanon, Ky., is proof. 

When he was barely 21, Tharp was wading through a rice paddy field in the Mekong Valley of Vietnam. Having been selected by Uncle Sam’s draft, Tharp, no “Fortunate Son,” dutifully complied, and when the band played “Hail to the Chief,” Tharp stood to attention with star-spangled eyes. 

He had been in Vietnam barely three weeks when his combat unit, Alpha Company, serving the 9th Infantry Division, was on a reconnaissance mission near Sung Hieu. The Viet Cong were waiting for them that day, September 26, 1968. Moments before, from the safety of the helicopter, Tharp had been admiring the picaresque scene below, the lush rice paddies, when suddenly the copter landed with a jolt, and under cover of its machine gun fire, he splashed onto the rice field, chopper blades whirring behind him. 

His company had suffered multiple casualties when Sergeant Tharp saw that his “point man,” Richard (Rick) Jordan, had been hit and was exposed to the enemy. “Something– I believe it was God— nudged me. I ran to rescue him.” Only later would Tharp realize he was the only one who left his position to run to the front, exposing himself to intense enemy fire as he made repeated trips dodging bullets to rescue the wounded—five of whom were fatally wounded. 

Even the medic (Kim Stanton) was hit, and Tharp, while rescuing Stanton, administered a shot of morphine to Jordan before dragging them back to safety.

The living tell the stories for the deceased. 

Those five men killed that day had a life waiting for them, cut short by war. 1968-1969 were horrible years in many ways. In Vietnam, the average death toll of American soldiers rose to almost 1500 a month in 1968 and 1,000 a month in 1969. 

Barney Tharp believes it is part of his duty to help us remember those soldiers. Even those who made it back often felt less than alive, frequently ignored, and sometimes ridiculed in a turbulent United States. 

As Tharp put it, “Many just faded into the shadows.” 

Tharp reconnected with his unit, showing up for reunions. “I’ve tried to bring them back into the light,” he said, “encouraging them to tell their stories and remember the ones who didn’t come back.”

Rick Jordan’s wife and three adult daughters drove eight hours in 2016 to thank Tharp for their lives, for if Tharp hadn’t responded to what he believed was God’s nudging, Rick would have never met his wife, and the three daughters wouldn’t be here. Tharp cherishes the family’s gratitude more than the Bronze Star for Valor the military awarded him for his bravery. 

In 2003, Tharp wrote on the Virtual Wall of Vietnam’s War Memorial, thanking each of the 13 men in Alpha Company who were killed while in Vietnam. Nine families responded to him, grateful that Tharp helped them process their grief. “I did it for us all, including myself, a band of brothers.” 

During his tour in Vietnam, Tharp received multiple military honors, including the Purple Heart. He didn’t carry those medals in battle, but he always packed a little New Testament in his shirt pocket. In its pages, there’s a story of the Apostle Paul being “compelled” by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem (Acts 20:22), which would eventually result in Paul’s death.

Barney Tharp didn’t have time to ponder it, but he too obeyed, “compelled by the Spirit,” to rush into the heat of battle to save the lives of others.

This Memorial Day, if you are in a restaurant and bump into what appears to be an old guy wearing a Vet’s cap, refuse to walk by without words. Stop long enough for the Spirit to nudge you and say something, maybe “Thank you for serving.” 

And then, thank God. Open your heart large enough and long enough to pause again sometime, perhaps before you eat barbeque on Memorial Day, and thank the Lord for the sacrifice of those who didn’t make it, the thousands through the years who gave so you and I could enjoy this day. 

And then, thank the Lord for you. Step out of the shadows into the light.

Maybe, just maybe, you’ll find that you too have been brought back to life, that in speaking their memory, the dead come alive.