Hoosier State Press Association - The Indiana Publisher - Better Newspaper Contest
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/96748
Division 2 Best In-Depth Feature or Feature Package/Category 10 First place ���He���s my hero��� Stephanie Taylor Ferriell, The Salem Leader Comments: Wonderful introduction and great storytelling. Brought the reader into the experience. Great use of quotes to share feelings as she began to know her father. Second place Principal connection Erika Schmidt Russell, Dearborn County Register (Lawrenceburg) Comments: Great topic about two wonderful women working together to improve the schools in both of their countries. Writer conveys that well by taking the reader on the tour with them. Third place Making music, friends Kevin Lilly, Brown County Democrat (Nashville) Comments: Great package! Loved the writers enthusiasm in his column and his objectivity in the feature. Photos shared the spirit of the experience. Well-done! ���He���s my hero��� Stephanie Taylor Ferriell The Salem Leader Samantha McNill wants to be just like her grandpa when she grows up. The 15-year-old is an active member of her school���s Junior ROTC program and she hopes to join the Army and become a medic. Samantha never met the man who���s sparked her interest in the military. Neither did her mother, Tina Allen, now 43. Tina was just 6 months old when her father, James ���J.J.��� Johnson was killed in Vietnam. At a reunion of his battalion, held at the home of Stewart and Sharon Boaz Saturday, June 25, mother and daughter discussed how their lives have changed because of the gatherings, held every two years. The reunions all came about because of Tina���s need to fill a gaping hole inside her, a hole left by never having known her father. In 1999, Tina placed a photo of her dad on the Virtual Wall with a message that she���d like to hear from any of his friends. She���d been warned that her wait could be long or that pranksters might respond. Within weeks Tina got a response. Roger Johnson said he was just ���playing on the Internet��� when he was on the Virtual Wall and saw the photo and message. He sent Tina an email. Tina had been advised to ask a question about her Dad that only someone who really knew him could answer. ���What was my Dad���s nickname?��� she wrote. ���J.J.��� Roger quickly responded. Roger said just two weeks prior to seeing the posting about J.J. on the Virtual Wall he had been at a church retreat. He thought about his time in Vietnam over the course of that weekend. ���I knew J.J. had a child and it just always bugged me. I knew I should find her,��� said Roger. When he returned home and logged on to the Virtual Wall, he typed in J.J.���s name. Tina���s posting ���was the first thing that popped up.��� Thus began a relationship that eventually opened a whole new world up to Tina. Roger remembered that Stewart had an address book containing information about their battalion���s members. He contacted Stewart and the trio began exchanging phone calls and emails. ���I didn���t know a whole lot about Dad,��� Tina said. ���I wanted to find out what he was like, who he was.��� Roger recalled, ���She had all kinds of questions.��� J.J. was killed Feb. 6, 1968. ���If there hadn���t been five minute���s difference, I would���ve been with him,��� said Roger. ���I hadn���t eaten and had just got in the mess hall and sat down when the first mortar round hit.��� That first round is the one that claimed J.J.���s life. That round also killed Forrest Bolin, who had learned just two days earlier that his wife had given birth to a son, Jeff. At the last reunion, held in 2009, Jeff and his family, including his mother, met another battalion member, Charlie Betner. For 41 years, Charlie had carried a heavy load of guilt for not being able to fulfill his friend���s dying request: ���Tell my family I love them.��� At the ���09 reunion, a tearful meeting healed four decades of hurt on both sides. Charlie was finally able to let go of his guilt and Forrest���s wife, Betty, learned her worst fear ��� that her husband had died alone ��� wasn���t reality. Roger said that while it was difficult to revisit the past and it took some prodding on Stewart���s part to coax him into attending his first reunion, it has changed his life. ���It���s been healing for me,��� he said. Although decades have passed, Vietnam veterans continue ���grieving, dealing with survivor���s guilt,��� he said. Tina���s childhood was marked by a feeling that she was different from all her friends and classmates. ���There was a part of me that was missing,��� she said. ���I grew up thinking I was the only kid this happened to. I had no idea there were 20,000 others like me.��� At the first reunion, held in 2001 under the huge ash tree at Stewart and Sharon���s Fredericksburg home, Tina even got to hear her father���s voice. Amazingly, Stewart still had a recording from his war days. ���He just says one little word, ���negative,��� ��� said Tina, but actually hearing her father���s voice was like receiving an unexpected gift. Hearing it was ���kind of strange, but kind of familiar,��� she said. J.J. only saw his baby girl once. ���I was born in August and he came home at Christmas,��� said Tina. The reunions and a trip to the Wall for an annual Father���s Day gathering of the sons and daughters of Vietnam War dead ���have been pretty healing for everybody,��� said Tina. ���We���re all still working through it. We all know everybody has the same baggage. It makes it easier to carry.��� Roger participated in a Wall washing event the night before the Father���s Day ceremony. The 58,272 names engraved on the black granite memorial seemingly disappear as the stone is hand washed. When it���s rinsed, ���they reappear,��� said Roger. Samantha participated in the Wall washing in 2005. ���Looking back, it really is symbolic,��� she said. ���They die, and they���re back now.��� Tina said filling the holes in her past has given her children ��� she also has a son, D.J., who���s 20 ��� a sense of their heritage. ���I think there���s a pride for both of them. And D.J. is the spitting image of my Dad.��� Tina said while it took until she was well into adulthood to learn about her past, it happened just as it should have. ���I wasn���t ready before,��� Tina said as she sat with Roger at last Saturday���s reunion. ���The timing was just so strange,��� said Roger. ���It was God���s plan, I guess.��� Although she knows her grandfather only through photos and the stories his war buddies share, Samantha says, ���I feel a connection to him.��� In their Florida home, the Allen family has a memorial to J.J., including his photo, awards and the flag which draped his coffin. ���I look at his picture all the time and I know he���s there,��� said Samantha. This year, Samantha received special recognition from her ROTC group, honored for going above and beyond the call of duty. ���I think he���s a big part of that,��� she said. ���Every time I put that uniform on, I know he���s there.��� Discussing her decision to join the military, she said, ���Grandpa is a big part of it. He���s my hero.��� Page 25