Happy Veterans Day!
My brother Bobby, a hometown hero
By Donna LaPointe
Editor’s note: The following tribute to Marine PFC Robert Earl Goding, a Purple Heart with Gold Star recipient from Ashland who was was killed in action in Vietnam in 1969, was delivered by Julie Albert, a CRNA and U.S. Air Force veteran, on behalf of Donna LaPointe of Casco.
My baby brother was a pain in my butt growing up, like little brothers tend to be – and I loved him. Everybody loved him.
I remember when he had the whooping cough. I didn’t like the thought of him sleeping in his bedroom at night alone. I was so scared that he might stop breathing, so I stayed in there with him and rubbed his back when he’d cough real bad. He was just about 8 years old then. I wish I could have been there to take care of him when he went to Vietnam.
He had just turned 20 when they took him over there and handed him a gun. He was too damn young to go into the service for what was going on over there.
Bobby, was a typical boy with a typical childhood. He liked to fish and ride his bike around our town of Ashland. More than anything, though, he loved to play basketball, and he was good at it, too.
He was over 6 feet tall, slim and athletic. Everyone in Ashland knew him and cheered him on during his high school basketball days. He was a top scorer, and when he went to play in the state tournament during his senior year, just about the entire town shut down so people could go and watch.
They closed everything again just a couple of years later when Bobby came home from Vietnam to be buried. There were people packed inside the building, outside of the building, in lines up and down the street at his funeral.
Ashland is a special little town, and Bobby was very, very special to the people who lived there.
Bobby went to Gorham College for about a year after high school, but I don’t think he was sure what he wanted to do at the time, and that’s when the Marines decided for him.
Our older brother Clyde went to Vietnam in the Army before Bobby, but he was already home before Bobby was drafted in 1968. I begged him to go to Canada, but he wouldn’t go. He said, “It’s my country, I have to fight for it.”
Bobby went to Camp Pendleton in California for basic training, and I brought him home again to see our dad when he fell ill that fall. Bobby was home when Dad died in December, and then they sent him to Vietnam in January. When he left my house, he kissed my son Todd and told me he wouldn’t be making it back alive. And that was the last time I saw him.
Three months later, on our youngest sister’s birthday in March, someone shot Bobby between the eyes.
He was engaged to a really nice, pretty girl who he grew up with and went to school with in Ashland. I haven’t spoken to her since he died. I think she eventually married and might be living in Alaska now. I know he wrote to her and Momma when he went to Vietnam. He wrote to me, too, begging for us to find a way to help get him the hell out of there.
Since Clyde had already been to Vietnam, there was a chance that Bobby might be able to come home, but by the time we received the letter from the representative, Bobby was already gone.
He was so young, and he had so much to look forward to. I can’t help but feel angry. He had so much to live for. It feels like such a waste, even to this day. I’d like to know what he would look like today or who he would be today if he hadn’t gone over there, but you can’t live like that. You have to move forward.
Momma called me and told me that Bobby was gone. Men in uniform had come to see her at work, and she said she knew why they were there before they told her.
She’s 94 years old now, and she has trouble remembering things about her life, but when I say his name, she just kind of comes to. I tried to talk to her about him last summer when I was visiting, and she started bawling, which is something she never let us see her do before. She kept saying, “My baby! He’s gone!”
We all took it hard. Before Bobby left Clyde said, “Keep your head down.” But, you just go on with your life. You have to. You figure someday you’re going to get to see him again, and that’s what keeps you going. There’s a plan out there for everybody — there was a plan out there for Bobby. It just seems like it was a crappy plan.
They named the gymnasium at Ashland High School the Bobby Goding Memorial Gym. To this day a display case still holds his photo and old basketball uniform along with a few other items family and friends donated. Every time I visit Ashland, I meet someone who knew Bobby, and, I can’t explain it, but it’s like he’s still alive up there.
Last September, a man named Harold Wilson, who was with my brother in Vietnam contacted me. He wanted to come and visit the town where Bobby grew up. I haven’t lived there for a while, and most of the family lives in other states, but I met him in Ashland to show him around.
Harold agreed to meet with people in the town and share stories and answer questions. You could have filled the gymnasium with people who wanted to know what it was like over there. He spent four full hours talking and answering questions and meeting with former servicemen.
Harold told me that while he was with Bobby in Vietnam, he wrote on his helmet that his best friend forever was God. Bobby had stared at that for a while and then piped up, “Hey Wilson, you need to add an ‘ing’ to the end of that so they’ll know who you’re talking about.” Even in the middle of war, Bobby still had a sense of humor. It made me smile.
We visited the house where we grew up in Ashland, and then I took Harold to Bobby’s grave in Masardis. Someone had been there recently, cleaning around the headstone and making sure his grave was well taken care of.
Nothing really helps with the healing process, but it does help to know that the townspeople thought so much of my brother. He was a hero in their eyes. He’s a hero in my eyes.
