By HEATHER PYLES, CJ Staff Writer
In 1965, at the height of the Vietnam War, every serviceman wanted a short timer stick.
The object symbolized to others the owner didn’t have long for his time in combat. It was a fiercely coveted possession. A short-timer stick would stay with a soldier for years after their time to serve would end.
That’s why Tateville native Samuel Coomer, now 67 years old, was so happy to get his short-timer stick back only last week, some 44 years after serving two tours in Vietnam as a paratrooper with the 173rd Airborne Brigade.
“The short-timer stick is one of those things you bragged about,” said Coomer.
The intricately-carved symbol had been kept, safe and sound, by Coomer’s bunkmate, Samuel Duke, after the two parted ways after going through 18 months of training in Okinawa, Japan and after going through several months of service in Vietnam together.
“He (Duke) kept this stick for me for 44 years, and I just got it back yesterday,” a delighted Coomer said on Friday.
But Duke, 64 years old, probably would’ve gotten the treasured item to Coomer sooner, had he not been under the impression that his friend had been killed in action in 1965 during a mission.
After being honorably discharged from service, Duke returned home to Texas, and in 1969, he came across a fellow serviceman, who informed Duke that Coomer had taken “two rounds to the chest” and died in Vietnam during his second tour, Duke said.
And while Duke would later find out — by way of the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall — that his friend was very much alive, the story he’d been told in 1969 wasn’t very far from the truth.
“They set us down in the wrong landing zone,” Coomer said about the day he was injured in combat. “They set us down right in front of them (enemy forces) and we all got shot up pretty bad.”
Coomer was shot in the right arm — which he would later lose — the chest, the stomach and the left eye.
But Coomer was still alive. He retired from the service and returned to Tateville, where he was eventually contacted by Duke in 2005.
“I spent that time (from 1991 to 2005) trying to find Herman Coomer,” Duke said.
The two men had developed a special bond through their shared experiences in Okinawa, Taiwan, the Philippines and in Vietnam.
“We lived in the dame bunk beds for 14 months,” Coomer said. “Four or five of us got pretty close to each other.”
So close, in fact, that Duke took it upon himself to track down his roommates — whether they were still alive or not. One such young man, Paul Nabors, had been killed in action in 1968. Duke searched for Nabors’ burial place for years before he discovered it was located in a memorial cemetery in North Carolina. It was when Duke visited his fallen friend’s final resting place when he contacted Coomer and told him he’d be making a stop in Kentucky to finally give him his short timer stick back.
“I told Coomer I was coming to see him to bring his stick home,” Duke said.
Coomer and Nabors weren’t the only ones Duke sought out. A fellow serviceman, Joel Parrish, had contracted malaria during his stint with the brigade, and Duke had lost contact with him. The two men reconnected in 2006, after Duke discovered that Parrish resided Duke’s home state of Texas.
“I have some other people on my list,” Duke said. “I hope to be able to contact them.”
But those reconnections didn’t involve returning a hard-earned short timer stick that had been out of its owner’s hands for 44 years.
“I feel relieved now,” Duke said. “I’ve fulfilled my obligation.”
Duke was only in town for a short time, but he and Coomer had plenty of time to catch up on the experiences they shared together as paratroopers.
“We went through a lot, didn’t we Coomer?” Duke asked his longtime friend.
Coomer could only answer with a simple, short “Yep.”
And now both men plan to keep in touch as long as they can.
“When you get our age, time runs out pretty quick,” Duke said, before emphasizing that too many of their comrades had fallen in combat long before they were to have kids or grandkids.
And despite the lost years, the two men retain a friendship that many can’t imagine — thanks to historical events that placed them and others in situations that helped them form a lasting, trusting bond.
“That was a long time ago and a lot of memories,” Coomer said.
