William C. Haskell - Eulogy - 2018

He was…He is…He always will be…A United States Marine…and my Uncle Bill. As you listen today, you will hear about Bill’s bravery and heroism. He had both in nearly infinite supply. However, on a personal level, Bill meant everything to me because he was there to guide me when I needed him most, as a small boy, an angry teenager, and as a young man.

Thank you all for coming. It is a great honor for me to speak today for my uncle, William “Bill” Haskell. I grew up with Bill and now I am giving his eulogy as he is laid to rest. Arlington Cemetery is our most sacred ground. There is no place that is more important to our country, nowhere has a higher price been paid for any ground. No amount of treasure can be measured against the bravery and sacrifice of the men and women laid to rest here. Nowhere is there a more moving sight than the endless, perfectly straight, rows of markers that bring me near tears each time I see them. Here there are many words that express bravery and sacrifice. These words include Belleau Wood, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Chosin Reservoir, Keh Sanh, Hue, Beirut where Bill and I lost our friend, Captain Mike Haskell, Fallujah, Ramadi, and today the battle for Hill 410, just south of the Demilitarized Zone in Vietnam. Since 1860, nearly 500,000 men and women have been buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Now Bill will take his place among the very bravest and toughest here.

Some of my earliest memories are of Bill’s time overcoming wounds he suffered in Vietnam. I say “overcoming” his wounds because while they may have disabled most people, Bill rejected any disability whatsoever. Bill embodied the Marine Corps ethic of adapt and overcome. That is a lesson he demonstrated for me my whole life. When I was a small boy, I lost hearing in my right ear. Mostly only my family knows this. This happened at a time when Bill was recovering from the loss of his right eye in Vietnam. We made quite a pair walking together. He wanted me to walk on his left, so he could see me, I wanted him on my left, so I could hear him. We never did settle that one!

Now I would like to borrow some of the words from a book written by a young Marine lieutenant who was there to describe how Bill was wounded 25 May 1969.

Kilo One Actual is down. We need help! The radio handset crackled. Over the firing I could hear the voice of Sergeant Jose Cruz. “Kilo Six, Kilo Six, this is Kilo One Golf. Kilo One Actual is down. We need help in a hurry. We have five or six wounded. I need…” and the radio went dead.

Bill Haskell, “Kilo One Actual”, was hit in the opening burst of fire. The crack of AK-47s from our right front was followed immediately by exploding rifle-fired and rocket-propelled grenades. Then came the louder reports of a heavy machine gun as it cut a swath through the trees just above our heads. My mind raced. Something was terribly wrong. Haskell couldn’t be hurt. He’d been at this longer than any of the rest of us. He’s the one who taught me how to “break bush”. He was the one the Company Commander called on when he wanted to move fast, because Haskell was the toughest of the Marines. Haskell had survived innumerable ambushes – both ours and theirs.

From the moment I’d arrived in Vietnam, over six months before, Haskell had helped me hone the patrolling and ambush skills that had been drummed into us at Quantico. A few weeks before, his first platoon had conducted one of the biggest ambushes of the war, for which many of his men had been decorated for heroism. Bill had, quite properly, been awarded a Silver Star.

As we crawled up the slope, the volume of fire directed against us picked up. Inching upward I could see the wounded Marines of Bill’s 1st Platoon. Cautiously, I slid forward on my stomach and came upon Haskell. 1st Platoon’s chief medical corpsman had dragged him behind a rock, little larger than a 55-gallon drum and was trying to treat what was obviously a very serious wound. Bill’s entire head was wrapped in battle dressings that were already soaked through with blood. He had been right at the front of the column when he was hit, and the doc, who had been five or six men back, had only been able to drag him about ten meters back from the killing zone. The men from Haskell’s lead squad, nearly all of whom were wounded, had established a small semi-circle up the hill and around the rock to protect their fallen lieutenant.

“How you doing, Rascal?” He couldn’t see me, for the battle dressings covered both eyes. Doc, holding an IV bottle above Bill’s head with one hand, looked up at me and with his free hand, motioned to me the course of the projectile that had felled my friend: through his eye and out the side of his head. The corpsman, with tears in his own eyes, shook his head slowly and patted Bill’s shoulder.

Even with the covering of gore and battle dressings, he looked deathly pale and his hands were blue and twitching by his sides. “Blue, is that you? I guess I won’t be going into the Z with you.”

"Yeah, well you don’t look so bad to me. What’s the matter, you get tired of walking and decide to take a rest?”

A very small grin began on his lips and he said, “You think you can handle it?” Lord, here he is, shot in the head, dying, and he’s still a wise guy, I thought to myself. And as I had for so many months, I let him have some of the same right back: “Oh yeah, I can handle it. But if you are just going to sit here on your duff all afternoon, how ‘bout letting me have your boots? Mine have about had it.”

“Nope. Can’t have my boots, I'm going to need ‘em.” He shot back.

Thank you, Colonel North, for these words. I know that for 50 years, Bill cherished your friendship and the friendship of others who were on Hill 410 that day.

I pick up Bill’s story from there.

I was about 4 years old when we started spending a lot of time together as he adapted and overcame his wounds. Many surgeries reduced the size of the bandage covering a good part of his head, which eventually became an eye patch which in turn was replaced by the glass eye that would remain with him for the rest of his life.

I was part of Bill’s therapy. We played countless hours of ping pong teaching him to adapt his now two-dimensional vision to a three-dimensional world. Anytime Bill came over, there were ping pong games that too often drew blood, or games of chess, or Rubik’s cube races, or skateboarding competitions. We would go to our community pool and race 50, 100, 250 meters. Bill would invariably bang his arm or head on the side of the pool because he couldn’t tell exactly where the wall was. There was only one constant in all of these competitions. No quarter was asked, and none would be given. This was never more true than in our family skiing races. There was only one rule. You start at the top of the hill and the winner is whoever gets to the bottom first. At stake were a full year of bragging rights! These were full contact skiing races, held on the last run of the trip because more than once we ended up in trouble with the ski patrol who was wondering who the totally crazy people were. By the way, Bill would want me to point out that my sister, Monica, ending up in the hospital on several of these trips is unrelated to the lack of rules during the races!

Colonel North described some of the skills drilled into Marines at Quantico. Many of those same skills were drilled into me as a boy by Bill. Terms such as fingers, draws, and reentrants we're common in my childhood. Back country campsites were chosen with a purpose. Canteens were always full or empty, no sloshing. My early camping gear included a well-used P-38, a Ka-Bar and an E-tool. I can navigate with a map but no compass, I can also navigate with a just a compass given two minutes of map study. I always know my panic bearing.

Bill taught me toughness and he taught it by example. He never complained about his eye-sight. Not one time, ever. He learned to drive all over again, he even became a pilot. He became a successful businessman. Meeting Bill’s expectations and living up to his example were very important to me as a boy. When I was in my early teens, Bill and I were members of the Quantico Orienteering Club. Many Sundays, I would be competing against Marines. Sometimes with Bill as a team and sometimes against him individually. The expectation was clear. Your very best, 100%, no excuses. Being tired, a bit of pain or fear, all understandable, but also all things expected to be overcome. I found out just how much this meant when I won the Virginia State Orienteering Championship for 18 and under, twice. In the state competitions, I went from competing against Bill and the Marines to competing against civilians. Game over!

In my later teens, I got another taste of Bill’s physical and mental toughness. Bill signed us up for a 24-hour ROGAINE in Gettysburg, PA. A ROGAINE is like orienteering on steroids. ROGAINE stands for Rugged Outdoor Group Activity Involving Navigation and Endurance. We had 24 hours to navigate to checkpoints. More points are given for greater distance and navigational proficiency results in more time to find more checkpoints. We had completed several 12-hour ROGAINEs leading up to the 24-hour version. As I planned our strategy, I thought 12 hours going, 2 rest, and 10 hours to the finish. Bill’s idea was a little more simple. He explained it to me as, 24 hours, best possible speed, no navigation errors, you can be tired at the end. And that is exactly what we did. The truth is that even though I was 17 at the time and a good athlete in good shape and Bill was over 40 by this time, I had no chance to keep up. He was a machine, a force of nature. 23 hours later I was totally exhausted, and we were 6 final miles from the hilltop finish line. I remember what looked like an endless series of contour lines on my map that had to be crossed. Bill checked his watch and declared 6 miles, 10 minutes each and set the pace. I can still hear and feel the rhythmic pounding of our jungle boots on the country road in the shadow of the Gettysburg battlefield. We made it with less than a minute to spare.

Orienteering and ROGAINEing were perfect sports for Bill. They combine athleticism, brain power, and determination in more or less equal measure. One of Bill’s favorite sayings, was “Always brains before brawn.”

I did get an opportunity to demonstrate to Bill just how much he taught me about adapting and overcoming. When I was in my late 20s I was running marathons. Bill decided to take up running, a hobby he would keep up for the rest of his life. My 4th Marine Corps Marathon, was to be Bill’s first. Truthfully, I was looking forward to the race, I thought my experience and youth gave me a good chance to beat him. Well, I woke up that morning with the flu and a temperature of 102. I felt awful, but quit is not a Haskell word. I always tell people that running a marathon is a mental challenge. A product of a childhood spent with Bill led to my belief that if you eliminate the possibility of failure by deciding that you will complete the marathon or die in the attempt, the finish line will come eventually. When I ran marathons, I had my Mom meet me in the middle for refueling with sugar cookies and Gatorade. When I got to the 12-mile point, no Mom in sight and the worst suffering I have endured in my life. Fever, pain, numbness, but no quitting. I finished in about 6 hours, by far my worst time. I felt terrible, cold, and couldn’t stop shivering. My Mom was crying and said she missed me because “old ladies and people with strollers had gone by!” The truth is that I was very very slow that day because I was sick and she didn’t wait long enough. But that day, Bill told me he was proud of me. That meant more to me than if I had won the marathon.

Bill also taught me about planning and adventure. We spent the summer after I finished seventh grade in the Amazon jungles of Colombia, Peru, and Brazil. We paddled a thing called a Folboat, a canoe you can take apart and put in a suitcase, down several hundred miles of mostly unexplored Amazon and tributaries. The lessons learned on that trip have lead me to successful expeditions back to the jungles of the Amazon, Peru and Central America, along the Inca trail to Machu Picchu, to the rim of a fiery volcano, to the depths of the oceans chasing whale sharks and to the slopes of Mount Everest.

Life was always an adventure for Bill, it was always about living forward. He saw the world, succeeded at everything he tried and never found an excuse for anything.

The Marines did not teach Bill to adapt and overcome. It is who he was even before he was a Marine and certainly one reason he was such a good Marine. The Marine Corps took the raw material and shaped, refined, and tempered Bill into a man that many viewed as indestructible.

Bill’s headwound in Vietnam would not kill him. Malaria, trichinosis, and dysentery could not kill him. Two serious motorcycle accidents could not kill him. I was very shaken when I heard that Bill was dying. I am over 50 years old and I have seen death. I lost my best friend when I was 26, I have lost my grandparents, my step-father, my father just a few months before Bill, and other people important to me. Nothing hit me as hard as hearing that Bill was dying. It was his brother Larry who provided words for my feelings. When I was talking to Larry, he said, “I always thought Bill was indestructible!” That reminded me of Colonel North’s reaction to Bill being wounded 50 years ago, “Something was terribly wrong. Haskell couldn’t be hurt.” That is exactly how I saw him too. I think that is how everyone saw him. But today is proof that even limitless toughness has an endpoint.

The last three weeks of Bill’s life may have been the most extraordinary. They were a true gift that showed me one final time the incredible strength and bravery of a man who was many things to me…Uncle, father figure, big brother, and hero. On a Friday afternoon, less than three weeks before he died and after cancer had taken a huge toll on his body, I listened as the doctors at Walter Reed explained to me that there was no way Bill was coming to my house for a last cookout the next day. The pain and medical complications were simply too great. When Bill said that he was coming anyway, I had no doubt that he would be there. The tremendous force of will that had served Bill so well his whole life was intact. If death was coming for Bill, it would be on Bill’s terms. He arrived the next day on time and even ate a bite or two of some of his favorite foods. I was very concerned this would be the last time I saw him but was given the gift of a few more weeks with him. As cancer ravaged his body, his mind remained strong until his last breath. Many times, people asked for updates on his condition and I would reply, “Bill is still Bill!” We had many hours to sit and talk. He told me that he thought we are a lot alike and that he admired the man I have become. That was very humbling to hear and something I will never forget. Looking back on my life it is clear to me that the best parts of who I am, my core, came from Bill.

His time in the hospital reinforced everything that I have always known about him. Since my childhood, I have known that “Ollie” was a brother and that Captain Goodwin had earned respect as a reconnaissance officer before earning Bill’s lifelong loyalty as Company Commander, Kilo Company. Seeing all three together and getting to spend a few minutes individually with Colonel North and Colonel Goodwin tied me directly back to my best memories of Bill. These were the quiet times when he would open up about the people and lessons most important to him. Also, during his final days, I got to meet other people important to Bill, his friends from the tax office, Donna, Andi, and Nicolya, Jerry from the HOG club, Dr. Fowler and so many more.

The last time I spoke with Bill was the day before his death. We both knew that death was near and he was prepared to die. As always, there was no fear and his concerns were for the people around him his son, Zach, my sister, Monica and his brother, Larry, who took such great care of Bill after his cancer diagnosis and who now assumes the mantel as the leader of the Haskell family.

As Bill and I shared memories for the last time he remembered a day about 20 years ago, when he introduced me to General Charles Krulak, the 31st Commandant of the United States Marine Corps. This is a quote from General Krulak to a group of young Marines, “I do not intend for 'honor, courage, and commitment' to be just words I expect them to frame the way that we live and act.” For Bill, this is a mission accomplished.

I always thought there would be one more adventure with Bill, always one more. There were so many, too many to tell you about just now and a few too private, but I want to add just a few more of my best memories of Bill. These are just snippets of some long stories. Ask me about any of them later and I will be happy to tell you more. I read an early version of my eulogy for Bill to him before he died. The list brought him a huge smile! This will give you an idea of how great it was to be around Bill:

• When I was a teenager, Bill would let me borrow his prized P1800E sports car whenever I had a big date!

• I was the ONLY kid ever to get in the Kettering pool during adult swim. This was approved after Bill’s glass eye popped out during an attempted flip off the diving board. Mr. Harrington was pretty much speechless when I asked if I could get Bill’s eye out of the pool!

• How did we lock both sets of keys in the car and capsize the sailboat?

• Gaseosas, beer, and local music at the outdoor bar in Cartagena, Colombia!

• We found a scorpion! Too cool!

• Other days we also found caiman, a bird eating spider, a river full of piranha, and a whole lake full of anacondas!

• Only hanging out with Bill was it possible to find a herd of 30 lb. mice and later the same day pee out the window of jail cell that is really the extra bedroom in the police chiefs house with a big mean dog by the door. You really do want to ask about that day if you get the chance!

• What happens when you crash a skateboard into a laundry table and an open 20-lb. box of Tide falls on you?

• Do you know how to play “Killer” with a deck of cards and how are we supposed to know if Bill winked anyway?

• Video games on the first big-screen TV!

• Penelope!

• Learning to drive in a car without gear synchronizers!

• Christie telling Bill, “No!!! Tires are NOT furniture!”

• Who knew an alligator could be a pet!

• The motel price went up to $17.99 a night?

• If you are walking up a ski slope carrying a sign with a big red “X” on it, you have messed up!

• Bill telling Monica, “Pack some snow in your glove, you will be fine!”

• Pam saying to Bill and me, “What do you mean you two kept skiing, they sent Monica to the hospital hours ago!”

• The defroster is not working, take your gloves off and put your hands on the windshield.

• OK, the 10:00 PM late night skate is open after night skiing.

• Backwards skating race! CRASH!

• No, seriously, Larry WENT OVER THE EDGE IN HIS CAR!

• Farmer Brown’s for donuts!

• First people in King’s Dominion, last people out!

• ½ an inch too short for a rollercoaster…Get napkins in your shoes!

• All of those Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners!

• We are going where? To do what? Wow!

There is no greater honor than to be a United States Marine. Bill was a very proud Marine who embodied the very best traits of the United States Marine Corps. He was tough, smart, and brave. He overcame and adapted. But in the end, no man is indestructible. Bill will live on in all that he taught me and that I am trying my best to pass to my sons. He lived a life of adventure, planning, toughness and unwavering bravery.

Bill did his duty to his country and to me when I needed him most. Rest in peace Bill. You will never be forgotten, and you will always be loved.