Veterans' Voices from LifeBio: Ronald Max Bailey

In honor of Veterans Day, we are featuring stories of Front Porch residents who served in our armed forces. This is the story of Ronald Max Bailey, an England Oaks Retirement Community resident, who began his service in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War.

"I served in the United States Navy. I was on active duty from September 1970 until October 1982. I achieved the rank of Senior Chief while I was on active duty. I then served in the Reserves from 1983-1996, and I was promoted to Warrant Officer CW2 while in the Naval Reserves.

I attended Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts in Biology. During this time, I married my wife, and we have now been together 46 years. My reason for receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Biology was because I planned to be a teacher. Plans changed.

I enlisted in the Navy, so that I was not drafted. It was my decision to enlist, because I wanted to serve my country by ensuring the Navy ships accomplished their missions. I liked watching ships when I was young. I also liked traveling.  

It was bittersweet for me to leave home. My wife was expecting our son and even though she was very anxious, she saw me off. After about two months, it was requested by our OB that I should be allowed to come home for the birth of our son, as it was going to be a risky delivery. I was there for three or four days before we knew he was out of danger.

Boot camp was an initiation to Hell Week! I lost about 30-40 pounds during boot camp. We had many hours of rigorous exercises and the food was very BAD! I was one of a few enlistees who could type, so I did that most of the time. That was a great escape for me, as I enjoyed the air conditioned office and not having to complete most of the exercises.

After completing boot camp, I received specialization in my Naval Rate as Machinist Mate. When I went to my first duty station in Alameda, California, I got to be more hands-on at nuclear power plants in my rate of Machinist Mate. After completing my required schooling, I stayed in Alameda, California, for about six months before I was told to go to the nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise. Life on an aircraft carrier is like living on a floating city. Like any other job in the civilian world, if you do your job well and promptly, everyone was happy.

I did not see any actual combat, because the Enterprise was out at sea. The aircraft completing missions took off from the carrier. Some returned in bad condition, but they were home safe and sound. Even though we did not see combat, I felt proud that I was completing my assigned tasks to the best of my ability. My most memorable experience was in our port of call in Tasmania. The locals met the ship and took several of us home to eat, sight-see, and talk! The family I went home with treated me very well. We ate wonderful home-cooked meals, did a lot of guided sight-seeing, and just having a comfortable bed was great. 

My wife and mother wrote a lot of letters and we were able to call home some during long deployments. The letters acted as a link between my wife, son, and parents. My wife wrote many more letters than I did, which was a source of support for me. This, along with my faith in God, got me through rough times.  

My last duty command was under Captain Hilt, who was in command of the USS South Carolina (CGN 37). He was a good leader, in that our whole command received the Enlisted Surface Warfare Service Award. My wife worked with Mrs. Hilt in the Wives Club and as an ombudsman! Being on my last deployment to the home port of Norfolk was bittersweet, as I knew my discharge from the Navy was near. I truly loved my service in the U.S. Navy. We were welcomed home by a huge mass of people who met the ship. The community was a great welcome, too.

Upon my discharge from the Navy, I worked for three nuclear power plants as an instructor for new operators. I also spent several years employed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I did many on-site inspections of nuclear power plants in many states. I would have stayed in the Navy longer, but deployments were often long and in-port time was not nearly long enough. One of my deployments lasted 13 months. All in all, I was very proud of being a sailor in our U.S. Navy. I felt I was doing my part to protect our country!”

-Ronald Max Bailey

LifeBio is an engagement program that captures cherished memories and lasting legacies through storytelling. Since launching in 2000, LifeBio has helped 20,000 people tell their life stories through autobiographical tools and services for all levels of care. LifeBio uses technologies as mediums to help individual document their stories in an easy and unique way such as tablets, web cams, and audio and video equipment. LifeBio has been a partner with Front Porch since 2009. For more details, check out LifeBio’s Impact Story on the Front Porch Center for Innovation and Wellbeing (FPCIW) website.

Why I Took Off My POW/MIA Bracelet After 44 Years

By Joan M. Burda for Next Avenue

By the Numbers: POW/MIA Bracelets. 

In 1972, when I was a student at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, a small ad in the BG News offered the chance to buy a POW/MIA bracelet. The going price at the time: $4. I bought two.

The bracelets arrived in a small package. I sent one to my sister, Janet, and put the other on my right wrist. Mine was engraved with a name: Capt. Charles Bifolchi (later promoted to Major). And the date he went missing in Vietnam: 1-8-68. Thus began a 44-year relationship with a man I never met.

Bifolchi’s mom sent me a letter telling me about her son. He was from Quincy, Mass. He wasn’t married when his plane went down. She enclosed a newspaper clipping bearing a grainy photo of the young man she prayed for every day. I wrote back and promised I would wear the bracelet until he came home. 

Over time, I learned more about what happened to the person whose name I wore on my wrist. And I waited. 

Charles Bifolchi was on a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance mission — the navigator on a RF-4C Phantom reconnaissance jet with the 16th Tactical Recon Squadron at Than Son Nhut Airbase in South Vietnam — when the base lost radar and radio contact. The wreckage was located the next day but it was too dangerous to recover the crew. Bifolchi was 25.

Keeping an MIA Commitment

Capt. Bifolchi became part of my life. I wondered if he were still alive. I wondered if he would ever come home. From time to time, I would look at the bracelet and talk to him. 

I envied my sister when she watched the soldier whose name was on her bracelet walk off a plane of returning POWs. 

As decades passed, people would notice the bracelet and ask, “Are you ever going to take that off?” Others would ask if I knew him and then say, “Why do you still wear it?” The answers were always easy: I owed him that much. I promised his mother. I wanted to make sure that he was remembered, thought about.

During the mid-’70s, while I was in law school at Pepperdine University in California, I worked at Disneyland in security. The dress code limited jewelry to class and wedding rings and watches. My bracelet did not fall into an allowable category. But no one told me to take it off. 

Most of the people who worked in the department were former military or active duty military working part-time jobs. Some were in the reserves. They all understood the significance of that bracelet.

Fixing What’s Broken

The original bracelet broke in half in 1980. I carried it with me in my pocket until I could figure out a way to repair it.

A few years later, I was in Washington, D.C., visiting The Vietnam Memorial and found my answer. I walked along the remarkable slab of black granite looking for the panel with Bifolchi’s name among the 60,000. I found it and stood there touching the bracelet and tracing his engraved name.

At the end of the wall, a Vietnam vet sat behind a table displaying a variety of flyers, photos and information. One of the flyers caught my eye — it was about POW/MIA bracelets. There was an order form and instructions.

I filled out the form and mailed it with the information on my bracelet and explained what happened to it. Ten days later, a small package arrived — and with it my new metal bracelet. I took the original out of my pocket and placed the new one on my right wrist and silently renewed my promise to Capt. Bifolchi and his mother to wear it until he came home. Decades passed. 

Waiting and Hoping

There have been times when I removed the bracelet for medical procedures. Once, a TSA agent required me to remove it before going through security at the Akron airport. She did not know the significance of the bracelet; the other agents at the checkpoint knew, and their displeasure was apparent on their faces.

People continued to ask when I was going to take my bracelet off. My answer, as before, was always the same: when Capt. Bifolchi came home.

For many years, I scanned newspaper articles about the recovery of remains in Vietnam. But the names never matched the one on my bracelet. When the Internet arrived, finding information became easier. I found information — comments from people who knew him — but no news. I waited and hoped.

Found at Last

In March 2016, my spouse came home and handed me a sheet of paper. “They found him,” she said.

It was a press release dated Oct. 26, 2006. I had missed it. He had been home for 10 years.

Bifolchi’s remains were recovered sometime between 1993 and 2000. A positive identification was made after his Aunt Louise provided a DNA sample. She died in December 2005 without knowing the results. The military notified the family in June 2006.

His big brother, George Bifolchi, a retired Air Force officer and Vietnam veteran, traveled to Hawaii to escort him home.

On Oct. 27, 2006, Charles Bifolchi was interred at Arlington National Cemetery, with full military honors. It would have been his 63rd birthday.

It was time for me to say goodbye. 

Saying Goodbye to Capt. Bifolchi

It was a hot and humid day when I took a cab to Arlington. I walked along Eisenhower Boulevard looking for Section 66, Grave 6820-2. After a bit of searching, I found the white stone that bears his name.

I introduced myself and apologized for taking so long to come. I told him about the bracelet and the promise I made to his mother. It didn’t seem odd to stand there talking to him — I’d been doing it most of my life.

I knelt before his headstone, took the bracelet off my wrist, laid it to rest and said my final words to Charles Bifolchi. I know he heard me.



Read more Veterans Day stories from Next Avenue.



© Twin Cities Public Television - 2016. All rights reserved.



###

Veteran Voices from LifeBio: Richard Pool

In honor of Veterans Day, we are featuring stories of Front Porch residents who served in our armed forces. This is the story of Richard Pool, a Fredericka Manor resident who served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War all while completing his study to become a nurse.

According to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, as of September 2016, there are now 6.9 million living Veterans of the 8.7 million Americans who served in the Vietnam War (1964-1975). 

My name is Richard Pool. I was born on July 10, 1942, in Watson, Illinois. I served in the Vietnam War in the Air Force taking care of wounded GIs in the Air Force and I was based in Vietnam. I want to be remembered as someone who is a freedom fighter and loved freedom.

Before serving, I went to Southern Illinois University studying nursing. My aunt was a licensed nurse and worked at a hospital where I studied, and she really talked up nursing to me. She told me I should go to nursing school, so that's why I went. I became a nurse anesthetist and studied the anesthesia part of my nursing school in the Air Force at Lackland Air Force Base at San Antonio, Texas.

It’s kind of a long story how I joined the Air Force, but we were being drafted by the Army. My friend and I said, "Let's join the Air Force. We won't go to Vietnam." Vietnam was the first assignment I had.

When I left home, it was very scary, because I didn't know where Vietnam was, much less who the people were or what I was going to be doing. I was pretty scared. I traveled by airplane. I flew to some place in northern California and we flew out of there to Vietnam, which was a 17-hour flight.

We didn't actually go to boot camp. In those days, you didn't go to boot camp, instead we had orientation. They taught you how to salute, who to salute, and where you were going to live.

In Vietnam, there were plenty of surprises. The atmosphere there meant we had to be alert and ready to run to the nearest bomb shelter.

While I was away, my family was very much affected. I wrote to them and they sent me letters and cookies all the time. The letters from my family were mostly had news about what was going on back home and the football team.

When my service ended, I was overwhelmed. I was so thrilled to be out of Vietnam. I didn't do anything special when I got home. I wanted to eat some beans and corn bread.

My wartime experiences affected my life. I learned to be very thankful for what I have, fight for what you believe in, and always be true to yourself.


LifeBio is an engagement program that captures cherished memories and lasting legacies through storytelling. Since launching in 2000, LifeBio has helped 20,000 people tell their life stories through autobiographical tools and services for all levels of care. LifeBio uses technologies as mediums to help individual document their stories in an easy and unique way such as tablets, web cams, and audio and video equipment. LifeBio has been a partner with Front Porch since 2009. For more details, check out LifeBio’s Impact Story on the Front Porch Center for Innovation and Wellbeing (FPCIW) website.