After the Flag Has Been Folded: A Daughter Remembers the Father She Lost to War--and the Mother Who Held Her Family Together
386
After the Flag Has Been Folded: A Daughter Remembers the Father She Lost to War--and the Mother Who Held Her Family Together
386eBook
Related collections and offers
Overview
Karen Spears was nine years old, living with her family in a trailer in rural Tennessee, when her father, David Spears, was killed in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam. It was 1966 -- in a nation being torn apart by a war nobody wanted, in an emotionally charged Southern landscape stained with racism and bigotry -- and suddenly the care and well-being of three small children were solely in the hands of a frightened young widow with no skills and a ninth-grade education. But thanks to a mother's remarkable courage, strength, and stubborn tenacity, a family in the midst of chaos and in severe crisis miraculously pulled together to achieve its own version of the American Dream.
Beginning on the day Karen learns of her father's death and ending thirty years later with her pilgrimage to the battlefield where he died, half a world away from the family's hometown, After the Flag Has Been Folded is a triumphant tale of reconciliation between a daughter and her father, a daughter and her nation -- and a poignant remembrance of a mother's love and heroism.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780061964459 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 12/15/2023 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 386 |
| Sales rank: | 999,668 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Karen Spears Zacharias is an author/journalist, and Gold Star daughter whose father was killed in Vietnam. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NPR, Huffington Post and Newsweek. She was named 2018 West Virginia's Appalachian Heritage Writer by Shepherd University and West Virginia's Center for the Book. Karen's debut novel, Mother of Rain, was awarded the Weatherford for Best in Appalachian by Kentucky's Berea College. Karen has served on the national advisory boards for the Vietnam Women's Memorial Fund and the Vietnam Memorial Wall Foundation. She lives in Deschutes County, Oregon, with her dog Hemingway, and volunteers with programs designed to help veterans and Gold Star families She can be reached at KarenZach.com.
Read an Excerpt
After the Flag Has Been Folded
A Daughter Remembers the Father She Lost to War--and the Mother Who Held Her Family TogetherBy Karen Zacharias
HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2006 Karen ZachariasAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0060721499
Chapter One
The Man in the Jeep
At first I never even noticed the jeep, what with trying to tie up the bulldog pup. Grandpa Harve was sitting in a mesh lawn chair nearby, his dead arm slung down between his legs. His good hand flicked a cigarette stub.
"Karen, you hold her," Mama instructed over my shoulder. "Frankie, tie that in a double knot." Daddy's best buddy, Dale Fearnow, had given us a prize bulldog as a gift that day. We were all gathered outside the trailer house trying to figure out where to keep such a creature in a yard that had no grass or fence.
We hadn't lived at Slaughters Trailer Court in Rogersville, Tennessee, very long. It was just a dirt hill with six trailers slapped upside it. One was ours, and one belonged to Uncle Woody, Mama's oldest brother. I'm sure given the situation Mama would have rather not lived in any place named Slaughters.
Folks often laugh when I tell them I grew up a trailer park victim. But when I drive through places like Slaughters, like Lake Forest or Crystal Valley, or any of the other trailer courts I once called home, I ache for the children who live there. And for thecircumstances that led their mamas and daddies to make homes between cinder block foundations and dirt yards.
This was late July 1966. Just like any Southern summer, the days steamed and the nights stewed. I found myself missing the ocean breezes of Oahu, where we had last lived with Daddy. We'd left the island just a month before, shortly after I finished third grade. We had family in Rogersville, where both my parents had grown up.
"I knew the minute I saw that jeep," Mama told me later. "There aren't any military bases in East Tennessee."
I don't remember having any premonitions myself. I was used to seeing jeeps. We had lived near military bases all my life. Fort Benning. Fort Campbell. Schofield.
"Shelby Spears?" the soldier asked. He was clutching a white envelope. His fingers trembled.
"Yes?" Mama replied. Her whole face went taut as she clenched her jaw. She turned and handed the pup over to Brother Frankie. Little Linda hid behind Mama, rubbing her bare toes in the dirt. "Finish tying him up," Mama instructed.
Then, pulling down the silver handle of the trailer door, she stepped inside. The soldier followed.
I looked over at Grandpa Harve. His eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses. A white straw hat shielded his drooping head. Sister Linda followed the soldier. I followed her. Frankie followed me.
For years now, I have tried to remember what happened next. But it's as if somebody threw me up against a concrete wall so violently that my brain refuses to let any of it come back to me. I suppose the pain was so intense my body just can't endure it.
I recall only bits. Crying. Screaming. Hollering like a dog does when a chain is twisted too tightly about its neck.
Frankie was sitting cross-legged on the blue foam cushion that served as the trailer's built-in couch. He pounded the wall with his fists. "Those Charlies killed my Daddy!" he screamed. "Those Charlies killed my Daddy!"
Grasping Mama's hand, Linda buried her face in her thigh.
I was confused. Who was Charlie? Who was this soldier? Why was Mama crying? "What is it?" I asked. "What's happened?"
"Daddy's dead!" Frankie yelled back at me, punching the wall again. "They've kilt our daddy! I'm gonna kill them Charlies!"
I had never seen Mama cry before.
Not even that December night in Hawaii when Daddy left us.
Sister Linda was six years old and was already asleep when Daddy and Mama asked Frankie and me to come into the living room. "We need to talk," Daddy said.
He'd never asked us to talk before. Not officially, like he was calling together his troops or something. Mama sat real quiet beside him on the red vinyl couch. Frankie and I sat on the hardwood floor, dressed in our pajamas, ready for bed.
"Frank, Karen," Daddy said, "I believe you both are old enough now to understand some things."
I was thankful he recognized my maturity. After turning over a whole can of cooking oil on top of my head earlier that evening while helping Mama in the kitchen, I was feeling a bit insecure about my status as the family's oldest daughter. I was nine years old.
"You both know who President Johnson is?"
We nodded in unison.
Daddy continued, "There's a country that needs our help, South Vietnam. President Johnson has asked me to go."
"Where's Vietnam?" Frankie asked.
"Whadda you gonna do there?" I asked.
"It's in Southeast Asia. We'll be helping protect the country from communism."
Tears stung. Not because I understood what communism was, or that Daddy would be in any danger. Simply because my daddy would be leaving me.
"Frank, you're the man of the house now," Daddy said. "I need you to take care of your mama and sisters."
"Yes, sir," Frankie replied, his voice too steady for a boy of just eleven.
"Karen," Daddy said, looking directly at me, "you need to help Mama take care of Linda. Okay?"
I nodded.
I held my tears until after I hugged Mama and Daddy and climbed into bed. Scrunching myself between the cold wall and the edge of my mattress, I began to cry.
A few minutes later Daddy flipped on the light. On the bed next to mine, curled into a ball like a kitten, a sleeping Linda didn't even twitch. "Karen?"
"Yes, sir?" I said as I wiped my nose on the back of my forearm.
"Are you crying?"
"Yes, sir," I replied. I tried to shake the shivers from my neck.
"Why are you crying, honey?" Daddy asked.
"I'm scared," I answered.
"Scared of what?" Daddy walked over and sat down on the edge of my bed.
Continues...
Excerpted from After the Flag Has Been Folded by Karen Zacharias Copyright © 2006 by Karen Zacharias. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
What People are Saying About This
“A beautiful and important book . . . Hero Mama will stay with me always.”
“One of the most original, heartbreaking and off-the-nose books about the Vietnam experience ever written . . . brilliant”
“Karen Spears Zacharias has written a dead-honest, raw-edged memoir . . . wonderfully told”