THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 18, 1994 TAG: 9406170077
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
DATELINE: 940618 LENGTH: Long
A few weeks ago, businessman Gene Gorman was seated before the television set in a semi-darkened room, gazing at the grainy newsreel footage of the D-Day landing at Normandy.
{REST} The sight of young men cut down by machine-gun fire, the swirling smoke of battle, the boom of exploding shells, had brought it back: a minute from the past from another war, another place.
He was confronted once again with the truth he had suppressed for so long. The truth was that he owed his every breath, each hair on his head, every waking moment beneath the sun and stars to another. To Pfc. Frank Hardy, who had received the mortal wounds that should have been his.
Sometimes he dreams about it, the images floating in his brain so real, he wakes in a sweat.
Lush green vegetation coating the jungle hills. The squad is on a search-and-destroy mission. Marines inch their way up a hill. A machine gun fires from the hill opposite. Bullets from the machine gun chew into the Marines climbing like bugs up their hill, red splotches blossoming on fatigues as the bullets hit.
They had to get higher, up near the top. So there was Hardy, a tall handsome black man, Gorman's friend, right beside him as they crawled up the hill.
The dream and the reality are the same. Pfc. Frank Hardy died on May 29, 1967. Hardy, who only a few hours earlier had been reminiscing about things in Hampton Roads - ``Ever been to The Circle restaurant in Portsmouth?'' - was the first to see the enemy machine gun on the hill crest. Instinctively, he pushed Gorman, who, unbalanced, rolled back down the hill. A second later, Hardy's head exploded as three whizzing bullets found their mark.
But he didn't drop. He just stood there, defiantly, for maybe 10 seconds, before falling, dead before hitting the ground.
That was the event that linked Frank Hardy of Portsmouth, a graduate of I.C. Norcom High School, and Gene Gorman, a graduate of Norview High School in Norfolk, forever.
When they carried Frank Hardy's body off the hill, Gorman stood by the body bag until it was taken away. He wanted to be sure Hardy was treated with dignity. Hardy was an easygoing companion when not on a combat mission. Then he was all business, Gorman recalled.
``I was his squad leader, a sergeant,'' Gorman said. Frank always wanted to be on the point. It wasn't something people wanted to volunteer for. The point man always goes first. The point was very dangerous in Vietnam . . . booby traps and snipers. He had everybody's respect for his bravery. When you are brave and willing to do what others aren't willing to do, you automatically command respect.''
Gorman was later hospitalized for war injuries and shipped back to the States.
``I felt very guilty after I got back,'' he said. ``Guilty for being alive. It's not uncommon for Vietnam vets.''
For the next seven years, he worked at becoming a full-time alcoholic. His marriage ended with divorce. Next came bankruptcy.
By 1989 he had turned his life around and remarried. And in time he came to cope with his Vietnam experience. He visited ``The Wall'' in Washington, D.C., where Frank's name is engraved in marble.
After that visit, he tried to reach some of Frank's relatives, thinking he had found them in Suffolk. But he reached a dead end and gave up.
Gorman runs a management consulting business in Virginia Beach - The Winning Edge. He recently accepted a business offer in Florida. It meant leaving Hampton Roads. So just more than a week ago, riding to the Norfolk airport with one of his employees, he asked him to find Hardy's relatives no matter how long it took.
``I had to deal with Frank's family before leaving town for good,'' he said. ``There was an emptiness in my heart I couldn't fill . . . a wound that wouldn't heal.''
After a lot of phone calls that went nowhere, Gorman's employee found Mary Hardy, Frank Hardy's widow, a medical clerk at Portsmouth Naval Hospital. His heart heavy because of his failure to get in touch after so many years, Gorman phoned Mary, asking if he could visit her home.
Last Friday, Gorman drove over to Mary's house in the West Park View section of Portsmouth.
``He sat right down on the front steps and told me all about it,'' she remembered. ``He was slow at first. . . . You could tell he didn't know where to begin.''
She said the visit had been a blessing. ``The casket had been closed during the funeral at New Bethel Baptist Church. We thought it was Frank. Now we know for sure. There was some doubt, you know.''
No one had told her how Frank died, she said, until Gorman turned up on the steps . . . 27 years after his death. She said Gorman had given her something.
She walked into the living room of her house and returned with a nicely framed, printed tribute to her husband written by his sergeant.
The tribute concludes:
``It was on that day that Frank E. Hardy showed all of us, in that thick jungle, what courage was. . . . `Greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13).' ''
Mary and Frank Hardy had been high school sweethearts at I.C. Norcom. She hasn't remarried.
I asked if she ever wondered now and then what life would have been like . . . what might have happened if her husband had lived and returned to his family. Their daughter, Tracy, 25, barely remembers her father.
Softly, Mary Hardy rubbed her fingers over the polished wood frame containing the tribute. At last, she looked up.
``Yes, I do,'' she said. ``I think about it all the time.''
by CNB