Eulogy for Richard ‘Dickey’ Randolph
I have done the best I could in this re-creation....which in fact, may be more polished than I actually delivered.....but no Eulogy can compare with individual memories.
************************************************************************
I would speak on behalf of my friend, my fellow-soldier, Dickey Randolph.
And I could not go any further without recognizing another ‘Brother’ what is known as
A Band of Brothers, who served with Dickey in the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam.....Jim Tidwell.
(Jet roars over)
(I respond....’that’s just Dickey’).
Dickey Randolph had an ‘infectious’ goodwill and humor towards people.
It’s why we like being around him.
If I had more of his friends here and his ‘inner circle’, I would simply ask
‘How many people here have ever done anything really stupid and outrageous when you were with Dickey Randolph?’
And I would be the first to hold up my hand in a sea of other hands.
He lived life and smiled with life and you would smile with him. And he was always, always, Dickey Randolph.
And he was a proud soldier.
Each and every one of you has your own memories of Dickey, but I will have to tell you one of mine, so that I can talk about what made Dickey so much the person he was that we loved.
And I will tell you and then I will go back in time so that you will know.
Most of you have seen the picture of Dickey and I in Vietnam. In fact, it was Brother Tidwell himself, that took that picture on some old ragged camera that somebody had. I was in Vietnam and separated from my troops in a bad situation. Really bad. Hostile jungle. And as I tried to rejoin my troops I came upon 3 soldiers who were bent down in tall jungle brush. And as I asked about movement, they pointed me towards my own men.
I left out trying to make it back to my men.
And then someone shouted.
‘Hey Nelvil’.
Hey Nelvil?
Someone is using my first name in the middle of a jungle in the middle of a war half-way around the world and we are out in the middle of nowhere in a place where everybody wants to kill everybody?
And I turned and one of the 3 soldiers was Dickey Randolph.
I’m not sure I knew he was in the Army, but I sure didn’t know he was in Vietnam.
We had time for a handshake of disbelief and then I proceeded on.
What had brought us together was a Firebase getting low on Ammo and the weather being so bad that airlift was out. We just had to push it in by land and whatever that took—that took. If the Firebase has no ammo, they cannot cover us, and they cannot defend themselves. It cannot happen.
That night, we worked. We worked ‘outside the wire’. Usually you dig in or hid and just wait for light. But the Ammo was bogged down and we could not abandon the lifeblood. We pulled a perimeter around the cannon shells and prepared to fight for it if that’s what it took.
Eventually we all did make it into the the Fire Support Base. FSB Rakkasan.
A hell-hole. End of earth. And eventually we came back down and reunited and Tidwell took our picture.
We had been soldiers before.
But our horses had been broomsticks, and our swords were made of limbs and boards.
We never lost.
We were in Kindergarden. Floretta Wright’s Kindergarden, age 5.
And to tell you more about Dickey Randolph and who he was. This Dickey Randolph that we all loved.........we go back to World War II.
At the end of the war, everyone wanted children and to build homes and rebuild lives. And his parents and mine were no different. The Hollingsworth family and the Randolph family wanted this and both families were active at Trinity Episcopal Church.
But they could not.
Neither family could have children.
And the years went by.
And both families applied for adoption.
The next day (or so it seems), my mother got pregnant with me.
The Randolph’s continued on and adopted Dickey.
So, there we were, going to Sunday School together and Floretta Wright’s Kindergarden as well.
At it was at Floretta Wrights’ Kindergarden, there was an incident that I will never forget and as I think back, it so clearly defines the wonderful spirit of Dickey Randolph.
For whatever reason, some child had taken a pencil and written the number ‘5' on the side of the Kindergarden. The outside wall. In a numerical number about 5-6 inches tall. And he had gotten caught by Ms Wright. She was stern.
She told him that he was going to take that pencil and he was going to stand in that spot and he was going to erase that number until it was no longer on her building and then she walked away.
The child immediately began sobbing terribly.
For in the child’s mind........such a task was undoable. It would take all of his life and he would still be there at dark and he would never see his parents again and each day for the rest of his life he would be erasing the number off the wall. Or, so it seemed in that child’s mind as he cried and cried and his tears came as he stood there at the end of his life at age 5.
I will never forget Dickey, so quickly grabbed the pencil from the crying child, and Dickey, also 5 years old began trying to erase the number himself. And as he did, he kept turning to the crying child and telling him, ‘it’s OK, it’s all right’.....’look, see, look here’....and Dickey kept erasing and talking to the child.
Finally, the child looked up and blinked through his tears and Dickey showed him where he had, in fact, erased about ½ inch of the letter within a minute or two.
‘You can do it’, Dickey said, ‘it’s not that hard’., ‘look, see’....and the child began to nod that he understood and he stepped closer to Dickey and looked at what Dickey had done. Finally his eyes cleared and he wiped his tears with his hands and Dickey told him ‘come-on’, ‘try-it’, ‘you can do it’, it’s all right’........and the child stepped to the wall and Dickey handed him the pencil and then fast as lightening, rode away on his stick pony.
After all, it wasn’t Dickey who created the foul.
And Dickey was much for punishment whether he created the foul or not.
I rode off with him.
I had to.
We had a lot of Indians to kill.
And our Cavalry horses were fast.
And that was Dickey.
That I believe was what made him who we loved.
That ability to turn away from doom and worry. And to pick and reach for a smile and a blue sky.
No matter what.
I was a soldier with Dickey Randolph.
And I made a decision to make him my friend.
