Hi Mom – A Son’s Letters from Vietnam Part II
A few weeks back Smithtown Today brought you a piece about Kings Park Native and Vietnam Veteran Larry Noon. Noon,with the prompting of his former high school teacher Leo Ostebo, penned a book that consists of all the letters he wrote home to his mother while serving a ten and a half month tour in Vietnam.
He was injured on March 25, 1969 and given the esteemed Purple Heart for his heroic efforts during the long and tumultuous war. However, the letters run the gamut of his entire tour.
Noon’s book starts with a map of Vietnam and a tribute to the late Danny Flynn. “Danny Flynn was one of over a hundred Kings Parkers who went to Vietnam, he died from a rocket explosion,” lamented Noon. The Noon family moved to Kings Park in 1952. “A lot of my school mates were drafted and in the Army by September 1965, one of my classmates was Daniel Flynn,” he explained. Noon met the young lad in the second grade at the now closed St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic school. The two pals always played sports together. To this day, he mourns the loss of his friend, whose name appears on the Kings Park War Memorial in the middle of town at the square by the Library on 25A and Church Street.
Noon who visits the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington annually sketched Flynn’s name for a keepsake and that appears on page one. He has numerous sketches of the names of other soldiers who were his friends who perished at the back of the book.
He also has a beautiful and large photo of his mother Elizabeth Noon as you open the large soft-cover book. She raised several children in Kings Park which he calls the greatest town on the North Shore.
Noon was a Marine and he wrote many letters back home to his family – he wrote every two or three days. He found the letters when cleaning out the family home and has never read them since they were written back in the late 60’s. They go from his days at boot camp to the hospital ship he was on while healing from some very serious wounds sustained in battle.
“The letters mailed from Vietnam are special, for those who have not been involved in this situation understand that each letter is always thought of as possibly being the last,” he said. “To survive it all and come home to your messages is a profound felling, please read this as if you too were a nine-teen year old soldier in a world of hurt,” he pleads.
The letters are either addressed to “Dear Folks” or “Dear Mom and Dad”. They were written from DaNang, from R & R stays and from the battlefields with the thunderous roar of mortars and gunfire in the background.
After many long and serious battles, some that lasted for days, Noon was wounded and taken away from his men, from his friends, from his brothers. From a hospital bed hosted by The American Red Cross, young Noon writes, “my friends in Nam are the best friends I have ever had, it is really a shame to know that I will never seem them again, I worry about them, it was pretty rough when I left,” he shared.
His concerns were warranted and his words true, he never saw some of those young friends again because they perished after he was hurt and ushered off to be cared for by The American Red Cross. There is a photo of Noon in a hospital bed (unable to sit up) but he was being pinned with the prestigious Purple Heart Medal. That and his many other medals hang proudly in a frame inside his living room.
In his last letter home on April 8th, the lengthy correspondence tells his family that he is coming home. It was probably his parent’s favorite letter. The last few letters of the book are letters to Noon from his Nam pals.
For Larry Noon, Kings Park Class of 1965, life has come full circle and given him the peace, warmth and success he fought for. Larry works extensively with soldiers from all wars and conflicts that suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He is a survivor of the heinous psychological malady that was once sorely misunderstood and called Battle Fatigue. Today Larry Noon is doing very well. He will recommend the PSTD Program at the Northport V.A. to anyone he comes into contact with. He is a tireless champion for fellow veterans.
Smithtown Today would like to thank Noon for his heroic and valiant service. “Once a Marine, Always a Marine” Semper Fidelis.