War diary helps a daughter know a father she never met
It wasn't until just a few years ago that Linda McBrayer felt like she truly "found" her father.
Cpl. Thomas Soliz, a radio operator, was killed in Vietnam on Sept. 6, 1967, just three months after McBrayer was born. Since her mother and stepfather never talked about Soliz, McBrayer grew up not knowing much about his military career.
I grew up "with four obituaries and his Navy Cross," she said.
Five years ago, the St. Paul woman received the diary her father kept during the war. It helped her learn a great deal about the father she never knew.
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"Somehow, someway, this diary made it back to Kansas City, Missouri, where it sat on a shelf for 40 years, was then transcribed by the granddaughter of the man who brought it back, who then diligently searched for me on the internet," McBrayer told MPR News host Cathy Wurzer.
"On my 45th birthday, my husband and I drove down to Kansas City and she and her father gave that to me," she said. "There are no words to describe what it's finally like to have your father's voice and to know how he was feeling, and to be so in awe of the man that he was."
The diary contained just 51 entries. The last one was dated Aug. 27, 1967:
I'm scared. Dear God, how I'm scared. We go north again tomorrow. Only the day before yesterday a man was killed and another wounded up there. The day before, Sgt. Anderson took three rounds in the gut.
I've had so many close calls and not one scratch. When will my luck run out? How many bloody Marines will I see? How many more people will go insane? How many more of us will die?
I expect no answers to my questions because a blind man cannot describe beauty and an idiot cannot discern right or wrong. I can only await the inevitable and ask, when will it be me?
Soliz was killed one week later. He was 19 when he died, three months away from coming home.
McBrayer is sharing her story with Twin Cities Public Television, which is collecting the stories of Minnesotans who have a connection to the Vietnam War.
More than 400 people have contributed to "Minnesota Remembers Vietnam: The Story Wall." It coincides with Ken Burns' new 18-hour documentary about the war, which tells its complicated history from several perspectives.