Paul Paschal still recalls that afternoon when the green MG Triumph pulled into the driveway of his family home on Skye Drive.
The reddish-haired Irish setter had gone missing, and now she was home.
“My brothers and I, along with a few of the neighborhood kids, were playing in the yard when a small convertible pulled up into the driveway,” Paschal says of that 1969 summer. “A soldier was driving and our dog, Sean, was in the passenger seat. That soldier was Sandy Finger.”
A lifelong friendship would ensue — one that would culminate on June 16 at Arlington National Cemetery in what would be a moving farewell for so many of the kids of Skye Drive and nearby Summertime Road now grown, to include the Paschal brothers, Barker brothers, Thorp brothers, David Broadfoot, and Charles Revelle, as well as Pat Paschal, matriarch of the Paschal family.
The Paschal home of Dr. Lawrence and Pat Paschal always was a welcoming place, where everybody, no matter who you were or your walk of life, had a seat at the dinner table.
“They always said, ‘The more the merrier,’” Paul Paschal says. “And it was my mother’s personality, and my mother asked Sandy if he would stay and have dinner with us.”
Staff Sgt. Sanford I. Finger would become a familiar face at the Paschal household, and to the neighborhood kids, he seemed larger than life.
“He was like an uncle or older brother figure,” Paul Paschal says. “He didn’t know anyone in the Fayetteville area. I think he enjoyed coming over and enjoyed a normal neighborhood. His mother was always appreciative of us taking him in.”
Finger was a soldier who had arrived on then-Fort Bragg by way of south Florida as the Vietnam conflict had called on American military forces under President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1965 efforts to assist with the collapsing South Vietnam government and the spread of communism during the Cold War.
“He shows up in that MG of his with that Irish setter sitting in the car like a person,” Pat Paschal, 88, says. “I said, ‘Well, come on in,’ because he had brought the dog. I could tell he was a nice guy.”
Neighbors came to know him, and those Skye Drive and Summertime Road kids, too.
“They treated him like he was a Cub Scout master,” Pat Paschal says. “He was full of life and told them how they should work hard.”
Reid Barker grew up near the Paschal family.
“I was between 9 and 10 years old,” says Barker, now 62 and living in Atlanta. “He would mow grass for neighbors and wouldn’t accept any payment. People in the neighborhood kind of gravitated to him.”
Finger taught the Skye Drive and Summertime Road kids how to climb trees and how to build treehouses.
“He was just a very kind person,” says Paul Paschal, 59. “When you are young boys, it means a lot.”
‘We never forgot Sandy’
Vietnam would call the soldier away, and soon enough the Skye Drive and Summertime kids would learn Sandy Finger no longer would be a part of their childhood innocence. They would no longer climb the backyard trees under his watchful eyes. They would have to figure out alone how to mend and repair their treehouses.
“I believe it was my mother who told us his helicopter went down,” Paul Paschal says. “They found some bodies,” but not that of Staff Sgt. Sanford I. Finger. “We thought maybe he survived. There was hope he would come home. We all wore POW bracelets.”
The Warrior 143 CH-47B Chinook helicopter was reported missing on Oct. 26, 1971, when it went down over waters while flying from Tuy Hoa to Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam. Remains of four of the 10 soldiers aboard were recovered, according to published reports. Finger’s remains were not among them.
“I talked to his mother right after he went missing, and to express my sympathy,” Pat Paschal says. “I only talked to her once or twice. But we never forgot Sandy.”
Nor did the kids of Skye Drive and Summertime Road, and surely not Paul Paschal.
“The internet came out, and about every year I would research what happened to Warrior 143,” he says. “I always had a curiosity. About four months ago, I was typing Warrior 143, and suddenly it came up. I couldn’t believe what I was reading.”
DNA identified the remains of Staff Sgt. Sanford I. Finger. The Bronze Star recipient, who was 29 when he died, would be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
“It finally answered the question we all had of what became of him,” Paul Paschal says. “I got on the phone and started calling my brothers and the kids in the neighborhood. I suggested, ‘Why don’t we all start planning to go right now to Arlington?’”
And that’s just what many of them did on June 16 for the interment of the body of an American soldier who had meant so much to them long ago to include Pat Paschal, who in 1969 took a then-lonesome soldier under her wing like a son.
‘Bittersweet’
“I hadn’t planned to be there in Washington,” Mrs. Paschal says, but Paul Paschal insisted his mother be there. “It was very emotional. I didn’t expect it to be as emotional. I was proud, and proud of those boys for being there. Charles Revelle came from Texas.”
A 21-gun salute would echo throughout the cemetery overlooking the Potomac River.
“It was bittersweet,” says Reid Barker, whose late father, Dan Barker, is buried at the cemetery. “I was glad to be there. It reminded me of my dad’s funeral in Arlington in 2010. He was in World War II and Korea.”
A farewell, Paul Paschal says, he would not have missed.
“It was just that it was an honor to be there,” he says. “Honoring someone we knew who had fallen during the Vietnam War. It was stirring to the blood, and we were just happy to be there to honor his memory. Sandy showed up in the wonder years, so to speak, and made a lasting impression on all of us in the neighborhood. Watching his flag being folded made me feel more patriotic. Just that it was an honor to be there.”
Paul Paschal and the kids of Skye Drive would meet Greg Ossi, the Washington lawyer and son the soldier would not live to know. The soldier’s nephews and nieces were there. And all would come to know the kids of Skye Drive and Summertime Road — Reid Barker, Dan Barker, Tom Barker, David Broadfoot, Jim Hayes, Charles Revelle, Michael Paschal, David Paschal and Paul Paschal.
“Sandy,” Paul Paschal says, “is finally home.”
Epilogue
Taps would offer a solemn remembrance.
A lump would find its way into Pat Paschal’s throat, and a tear to her eye.
“I think he would have been overwhelmed,” Pat Paschal says. “He would have been amazed. A son, his family and all those boys from Skye Drive there. I thought, ‘Are you watching, Sandy? Just look who is here.’”
Just imagine what an American soldier came to mean to the lives of so many, and those kids of summer 1969 along Skye Drive and Summertime Road.
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
