There is an old German tune played at military funerals called "Ich hatt' einen Kameraden" (I had a comrade). It came to mind this past week when we learned that Tom DeTriquet had passed away suddenly at 66 in his home in northern Virginia. Tom, like me, was a retired DEA agent. We served together in Bangkok in the late 1970s, and as I recall, he was born one day later than I.
Originally from the New York-New Jersey area, Tom was of French-Italian extraction, but he identified more with his French side. He learned to speak the language, and he appreciated French culture, food and wine.
He was also a Viet Nam combat veteran, a Marine captain, no less. Coincidentally, he married a Vietnamese woman, Thieu, a saint of a woman who was with him till the end.
Tom and I first met in Los Angeles, where he (already stationed in Bangkok) was passing through while I was awaiting orders to transfer there. Early on in Bangkok, we had an angry disagreement over a work-related issue, but it passed.
During our tour in Bangkok, we experienced a tragedy in our office when Bob Lightfoot, a young fellow agent, accidentally shot himself when his weapon dropped off his desk onto the floor and discharged. Tom was the first to reach him and took charge of getting medical help on the scene. Bob died a couple of hours later in the hospital. It was a tragedy that Tom, I and others personally experiened.
After our time in Thailand ended, Tom and I went on to many different postings. He went to Phoenix, Pakistan, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, and, of course Hqs. Our paths would cross from time to time, either in the Washington area, Phoenix, San Francisco, or New York. I always enjoyed those times together sharing food, drinks, war stories, and jokes. Late in his career, Tom participated in Operation Snowcap, a dangerous, long-term venture in South America, aimed at locating and destroyintg cocaine labs in coordination with our South American colleagues. He was older and didn't have to volunteer for such a high-risk, physically demanding job, but that's the way Tom was.
Like so many law enforcement types from the New York area, Tom was a great raconteur and master of the one-liners. He told a story of traveling to Paris for three days with a Thai Customs official. For Tom, it was a dream come true, and he looked forward to dining on French food and drinking French wine. On their first night in town, they were walking down the Champs d'Elysees looking for a place to have dinner. They passed a Chinese restaurant, and his colleague suggested Chinese food. Gritting his teeth, Tom decided to be diplomatic and give in to his friend's request on the first night. The following evening, when they were discussing where to eat, the Thai Customs officer, said, "Tom, remember that place we ate last night?" Suffice to say, Tom ate Chinese every night in Paris (or so the story went.)
Tom was a good man who served his country well, and it's unfortunate that he, like many others, couldn't enjoy a longer retirement. He leaves behind a son, who attended the Citadel and is also serving his country, a daughter and his wife's younger sister, whom he adopted. His burial will be this coming Monday at Arlington National Cemetery.
When I look back on my association with people like Tom DeTriquet, I realize that of all the things I have done in life, that which I am most proud of is having been a DEA agent.
Farewell, my comrade.
18 comments:
It's odd that the time spent in the service is so memorable in such detail years afterward. I have the same clear recollections of people and situations while I was in. I suppose the whole time is so intense, even the down time, that you never really forget it.
I recently met a couple of WWII servicemen, obviously older gentlemen, who can easily be coaxed into telling some really hair raising stories of things they went through and endured.
It would be a tradgedy if what all of us went through was for the benefit of these ungrateful punks occupying cities around the country.
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Miggie,
I'll echo that.
Sorry for the typos lately. It should be tragedy, not "tradgedy."
Nothing irks me more than ingrates. If you ever had an ungrateful boss or ungrateful employee, you know what I'm talking about.
Here these inarticulate, incoherent bum occupiers want nothing less than everything should be given to them, from free tuitions to free healthcare to free food stamps. This is not to mention a free country already built up that they did nothing to contribute to. I am not sympathetic to the plight of the parasites.
If they missed a meal or two, they'd find a job pretty quick. If they figured out it would be worthwhile to join the services, considering their alternatives, they would get straightened out in a hurry.
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That's why ending the draft may not have been such a great idea.
Again, I can't believe what I am reading here. First of all the song "Ich hatt einen Kameraden" is not about an old guy who died, but about a young man seeing his "Kameraden" get shot next to him and die. Then, what about all the former soldiers who came back from battle, sick and unable to ever get their life in order. I know many ex soldiers personally, German and American, including my deceased father in law who fought in the Pacific and my brother in law who at age 17 fought in Russia, and none of them glorify military or war the way you both do, you obviously never saw battle and are ready to send young men off to war while you are sitting pretty with your lovely pension and dream of the days of glory as if you never had a real life afterwards. Be careful whom you call parasites.
Ingrid,
Your comment is worthy of the Westboro Baptist Church. As I pointed out, Tom fought in combat in Viet Nam. That plus his service as a DEA agent, earned him a final resting place in Arlington National Cemetery at a time when space has become restricted. Perhaps, I erroneously assumed that the song was also played at the funeral of German war veterans who survived the war and died later in life, but everything I wrote in that piece was positive. Only you found something negative about "an old guy who died".
I am calling these bums in "Occupy" movement parasites. They aren't grateful to all those who fought and died to make this country great. These benefits didn't come easy or cheap at all and they had to be gained and retained in battle from those who would have supplanted our way of life. This country was given to them free of charge from all who proceeded them and yet the rioters want to suck out more benefits because they are too lazy or stupid or whacked out to go try to make a living on their own... much less volunteer to defend the country.
These kids want, among other things, their college loans forgiven. So who pays for that? They want mortgages forgiven, and who pays for that? You are going to run out of "rich people" to tax.
You think that you can just reason with tyrants and terrorists and they will then change their ways? Maybe if you just baked them some brownies they would stop hating us so much.
And by the way, there is a big, big, difference between those who " know many ex soldiers personally" and actual ex soldiers.
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Miggie, you can call the sun a planet and the Mississippi River an ocean, but nobody else is going to change the way English is spoken in the USA. Gary's trying to offer a dignified eulogy. Come back with the political speech later. (I was a little surprise that Gary used the word "comrade," but why not? The U.S. army has "cadres."
Gary, I apologize for sounding callous about your grief of losing a friend. I got carried away by reading your and mostly Miggie's glorification of war, surviving war heroes, and the willingness to send young people to fight and die for your very high standard of living.
The world is changing which Miggie doesn't seem to get and our young people don't have the promise of a secure financial future like your generation had. To call them parasites is just wrong. Just get a job is such an arrogant statement because it isn't that simple anymore, even with a good (and highly expensive) education. Sending young people into the military obviously doesn't make things better either.
I would like to know if Miggie ever saw combat or just heard about it like I did.
THE FAITHFUL COMRADE
I had a faithful comrade,
No better can be found.
To battle drums were guiding,
Beside me he was striding,
In step we paced the ground.
A bullet came aflying,
Is it meant for thee or me?
'This he was felled and dying,
Now at my feet he's lying,
As if a part of me.
His hand is stretched towards me,
Just as I load anew.
"I cannot give my hand to thee,
In after-life be friend to me,
My comrade brave and true."
Thank you, Ingrid.
I do not glorify war. I lost two childhood friends in Viet Nam. All I say is that there come times when we will not keep our liberty if we don't defend it and WW 2 was the classic example. (Though I never fought in the military, I did experience a shoot out with DEA. It was scary and I don't wish that on anyone).
World War II was a war where if we didn't fight for our freedom, we would have lost it.
World War I was a war where all the combatants lost their freedom, because all the governments marching them to the front were fighting the war on behalf of plutocratic parasites.
We would be better off if our nation had not enacted the laws that DEA enforces, or had adopted a very different strategy. However, that strategy has enable the growth of cartels that are every bit as much a threat to our freedom as any tyranny has ever been. So, the DEA is indeed fighting for our freedom.
There was a B-grade movie about a Columbian cartel taking over an American navy submarine with some high tech pranks. An American soldier who had a friend on board the submarine remarked "I don't care if they legalize drugs or not..." but he wanted the leadership of the cartel that killed his friend wiped out, which gave him enthusiasm for the mission.
Ingrid, I think there must be a big duplicating machine someplace that cranks out liberals because they all processes issues the same way, not to mention the automatic suspicion for the messenger before processing a message that doesn't sit well.
One of the dead give aways is the emotional response over consideration of alternatives and known human experience.
Nobody "glorified" war but the fact remains that the U.S. had to overcome numerous challenges - from our War of Independence, to the War of 1812, Civil War, WWI, WWII, and even 2001. We would never had overcome had we not had a military capability.
On the other hand, we now have a sclerotic unsustainable welfare state (thanks to the liberals) that can't be cut back without rioting in the streets. These incoherent dregs you sympathize with seem to want more handouts or forgivenesses of their debts. If you want that kind of society, you can try to have us emulate Greece.
As a matter of fact, college graduates now have an unemployment rate of 4.5% so it is as simple as that. The best way to avoid poverty is to get a useful college education and get married. The way to insure life long poverty is to drop out of school, have bastard children, and demand that others pay for it by government decree.
Another thing the liberals lack is any sense of irony. Don't you know that, while you complain of expensive educations, the underlying cause is the transfer of financing college educations to third parties. (The same skyrocketing cost of medical care will kick in once ObamaCare kicks in.) When people use their own money, they make better decisions about what to buy than when they can get the money from someone else.
Insofar as your questioning my military credentials instead of considering the points I made, let me tell you once that while I was never shot at, I did survive a CS grenade that was tossed into my BOQ (Bachelor Office Quarters) in the middle of the night. It has impaired my lung capacity ever since. I don't like to talk about it.
I know this doesn't compare with your ridiculous claim of personal knowledge of the horrors of war based on "knowing ex-soldiers personally" but it will have to do.
Miggie, my personal horror story of war is that I was born in Germany in 1943, 18 kilometers from Nuernberg which was almost totally destroyed a year later, and grew up in Germany under terrible conditions, saw and heard enough about war, and probably only survived because of Americans willing to feed a starving nation, including me and my 6 siblings.
I married an American ex soldier, and I have American children and grand children. We paid for our childrens education and never had a hand out. I am not a "liberal" and I resent you calling children bastards. Society didn't just start two years ago, mistakes were made all along by every government. You sound to me like a spoiled American with no heart.
Igrid, you remain emotional and inconsistent. On the one hand you write, "Sending young people into the military obviously doesn't make things better either." Yet had American young men not gone to war, you would have lived most, if not all, of your life under Hitler. You seem to be oblivious to the irony. Liberals have an inventory of catch phrases that they profess without realizing the irony of their conflicts.
Since English is not your native tongue, you may not know that the word for a child born out of wedlock is "bastard."
One of the main reasons people go into poverty and stay there on welfare is the number of bastards in the household. There is no male figure for the children and they learn on the street and later in prisons what their father should have taught them, had they been present.
They comprise most of the crime and criminals in jails. This is a tremendous drain on the resources available to the society.
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What obstructs your vision, Miggie, is not a big duplicating machine, but a set of blinders which allows you to see only what you want to see, and a collection of mirrors which allows you to see what you want even if it is not there.
I yield nothing to you in despising liberals. Every pejorative you use about your political enemies du jour was used by the Industrial Workers of the World to describe the capitalist class. I'm all for the principle "those who work will eat," which you probably wouldn't support, because it is a socialist slogan, but first, everyone has to have a job to work at.
Generally when several generations of a family are single women raising kids who become parents out of wedlock at 14, the family can be traced back to a southern plantation where that was the norm, because they were all in shacks way back off the road with no polite presence, and nobody cared if the toughest young men deflowered each post-pubescent girl.
But you are distracting me. I just glanced over at the headline, and realized this was a memorial to Gary's DEA comrade. Have you no shame sir? You are no better than the Westboro Baptist Church yourself. Save your spluttering expostulations for another day.
Thanks albeit belated for the kind words about my brother Tom. He was a really fine man and we still miss him greatly.
And thank you. His friends in DEA miss him too. My best regards to Thu, Tommie, Beh, and Gigi.
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