My World Made Bigger

Corporal Jackie G. Montgomery Killed in action in Vietnam May 1, 1968 

Photo courtesy of

  
Cleo Montgomery  

Written by 
LeRoy Walls 
CEO 

My first days of school in Cabool’'s first grade were quite frightening. I was five years old and had never been around so many kids. Except for my cousin Barbara Walls all the rest were strangers. It was my cousin Barbara who comforted me when I cried, tied my shoes for me and got me out of the shorter line to the girl’s restroom and into the line for the boy’s restroom.

Over the years the kids in Miss Vonder Hoff’s and Mrs. Simmons’ classes would become my friends. Jack Montgomery was one who would have a significant impact upon my life. And not only on me but also on many who started school in 1950 and graduated from Cabool High School 12 years later in 1962.

Jack was the son of Elvie and Cleo Montgomery. Jack’s father Elvie was killed in an automobile accident when Jack was three. Fortunately, Jack had a terrific mother and a fine family that included two brothers and four sisters. In all the time spent with Jack he never complained that life was unfair without a father.

Jack lived on the edge of Cabool on the north loop road. I lived on a farm five miles east of Cabool on City dump road. I was a country boy through and through and Jack was a sure-nuff’ town boy.

During my first five or six years of school my friendship with Jack grew as it did with many others in my class. It was during the seventh grade in Mrs. Poe’s class that Jack became more to me than just a casual friend and classmate. During the seventh through ninth grades Jack was the primary person who brought me into a larger world and broadened my horizons. Jack and I became better acquainted in school partly by getting in trouble together. I can’t remember being much trouble to teachers before seventh grade. It would be easy to blame Jack, Mike Jones and others for corrupting me, so I think I will.

Mrs. Poe, our energetic and dramatic seventh grade teacher was one that I liked and respected. She could make stories and poems come to life. I’ll never forget her "Casey at the Bat" and for some reason I can still quote much of "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe that she taught us. I also remember a few whelps raised on my behind. She was pretty dramatic with her little paddle too!

This reminds me of one afternoon when Jack and I were sophomores and were still in the hall fiddling around after the last bell for class had rung. Coach Cooper caught us and took us to his office in the Gym. He then gave us his big paddle and asked us to swat each other as hard as we felt the other deserved. Since he didn’t agree with how much punishment we had applied he then swatted us both MUCH harder!

I was raised in a large family with two brothers, two sister and dozens of cousins. For the first 12 years of my life all my close friendships were within my family. I love my family and will always love my cousin Barbara and our cousins Dennis, Dean and Gary who were close to my age and who grew up on farms close to ours. But to some degree even these close friends were somewhat predetermined for me by the family I was born into and by living close to them.

My friendship with Jack Montgomery was quite different -- I chose him as my friend and he chose me as one of his friends. He was my first personally selected friend. In making this choice I’m reminded of the end of the movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark". The saintly guardian of the Ark advised Indiana Jones to "choose wisely". In reviewing my selection of Jack Montgomery as my friend--I am thankful that I "chose wisely".

Jack and I trusted each other and we shared secret dreams and fears with each other. I believe that each of us was some help to the other in getting through the difficult years when our bodies, emotions and our whole world was changing.

I went to my first movie, "The Giant Tarantula", with Jack. I’d occasionally stay overnight at Jack’s house and find a far different world from the one I lived in. There was far greater freedom to stay out late and wander around Cabool and the surrounding countryside. And there was even the opportunity to visit and eventually become a semi-regular frequenter of such dens of iniquity as the "pool hall" and "the Highway Drug". While I suppose I learned a little iniquity at those places, I must admit that over the years I learned about the same amount on the grounds of my beloved country church.

With Jack and other friends we hiked to "Dripping Springs", climbed all over "The Narrows", near "Dogs Bluff," on the Big Piney River. We’ve fished at "Baptist Camp", hunted deer in the National Forest, visited "Noblett Lake" and "Topaz Mill" and swam in just about all of this area’s swimming holes. Jack and I have danced out sounds of galloping horses with empty beer cans clamped onto our shoes and in general soaked up much of what life had to offer in Cabool, Missouri in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.

Jack was always telling stories and his specialty was ghost stories. It took years for me to admit that many of his stories scared the crap out of me. Once after one of his ghost stories at Baptist Camp while I was picking up wood for the campfire, I really wanted to forget the wood and run as fast as I could back to the fire. But having my "tough teenage boy" image to try to maintain I concentrated on not thinking of Jack’s story and thus gathered a little wood before quickly returning to the light of the fire.

Jack told these stories wherever he was at but in the heart of the North woods was a favorite spot. There the trees were so close to the logging road that you could barely drive through these woods.

My friend Spunk White told me of the following event as the one time that Jack’s friends were able to get even with Jack for scaring them so often. Prior to taking Jack through the north woods they used a rope noose to hang a life-size dummy from a tree. It was made by Randy Mohler and had catsup for blood and apparently looked pretty lifelike.

Then as Spunk, Mike Jones, Larry Ussery and a couple of others casually drove through the woods, Jack began telling a story - making it up as he went along. Jack was telling it using Shakespearean lingo. Just as they turned the corner that showed the hanging dummy in the headlights, Jack said "Hark, a man has been hung from yon’ tree!" Then as Jack did a double take to relook at the dummy he peed his pants! This was the one time that Jack’s friends succeeded in giving him a dose of his own medicine.

Jack was light years ahead of me when it came to knowing the neat stuff! He knew about "French kissing" the latest hip words like "groady" and "daddio" and was Cabool’s King of "Limbo". Jack was one of the few guys in our class with the rhythm, ability and willingness to dance. This placed him in high demand by the girls at all sock hops and dances. He was a fine singer and could pick the new songs that were going to make it to the top of the charts. Jack was really something and I was proud to be his friend. He was a very popular and entertaining guy. But when Jack made the Seventh and Eighth grade basketball teams and I didn’t - - - I was far more jealous of him than proud of him.

After high school it was Jack who encouraged me to invite Paula Grisham to a hayride that he and Bub McMillan, another fine friend, had planned. After two dates with Paula, Jack was convinced that Paula would end up being my bride. Jack was right and two years later he stood up front with me when Paula and I were married.

After high school I often spent time with Jack, Bub, Terry Rackley, Charles Hamilton, Larry Archer and others. We were "regulars" at ballgames, stock car races, the bowling alley and the Junction Drive-in. After Paula and I began dating, Jack would sometimes cruise town with Paula and me.

At about the time that Paula and I moved to the St. Louis area Jack went into the Army. The Vietnam War was in full swing then. I was never drafted since I was married and soon had a child and I worked in an engineering department of McDonnel-Douglas, a major defense contractor.

When I got letters from Jack, my return communications fell far short of what Jack needed and deserved. In my secure corner of the world I felt guilty for where I was as I thought of him in Vietnam. Although I was proud of how Jack was facing his duties and hoped he knew how much he meant to me, I don’t think that I really told him these things.

In Vietnam Jack was an assistant machine gunner, and that meant lugging a 60-pound load of ammunition wherever he went. At one stretch he was in the field for 50 days without a day off.

Jack’s death on May 1, 1968 was a shock to me and to all of us that loved and appreciated him. In life Jack Montgomery was the one man I was most willing to share my deepest feelings, fears and hopes with. In death by his "unfinished letter", published in the Cabool and Springfield papers, Jack Montgomery continues to challenge Cabool, the class of ‘62 and me to accept and respect people, respect God, and be thankful for what we have. Here are a few paragraphs from Jack’s letter:

It is dark and I am near my foxhole on guard. There are flares exploding steadily so I can see enough to write a little. For those back home who believe God is dead, send them here for a while. You run into God here every time you turn around.Remember to thank him (God) for what he has already given us. Every day is Thanksgiving here. I was under a poncho with three Negroes when we heard the news of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. We discussed it, not as three Negroes and one white man, but as four men. One made the remark that if the people back home could only see how we live together, work together, care for one another over here, then there would be no consideration given to color.

I’m sure that in Vietnam these men and many others benefited and were blessed, as I was for many years, from Jack’s insight, compassion, music and humor.

Jack accepted his situation in Vietnam. Near the end of his unfinished letter he said: Here in Vietnam, you never hear anyone say, ‘Why me?’ We understand why ... we will live better, for we have seen a life without freedom.

Jack was the one who introduced me to a bigger world and to a new freedom of choice. He then died for the cause of giving freedom to people he never really knew.

My oldest granddaughter Ashlyn Montgomery is helping me edit this story. She is eight years old and has heard Jack’s story from her Grandpa Jim Montgomery. Although I will always feel closely akin to Jack—my granddaughter, Ashlyn, and her sister and brother are blood relatives of Jack and this certainly pleases me.

Sometimes Jack and I discussed the future. He hoped to marry, raise a family and be an active part of their growing up years. But more than anything Jack wanted his life to count for something.

We, in Cabool’s Class of 1962, all wish that Jack’s dreams and hopes could have all been met --- but I know for certain that Jack touched, enlivened and improved the lives of those of us who knew him. We indeed are enriched because of the life of Jack Montgomery. And we remain challenged by the heroic death and "unfinished letter" of our classmate and friend Jack Montgomery.

March 1997
Written four months prior to the
35th year reunion of the Class of 1962
Cabool High School

12/31/1999