Winter and I went to high school in Hunstville Alabama together while my IBM dad worked in the company’s part of the Apollo moon rocket project, starting with 11th grade when Winter and I shared an Algebra II class after he transferred from some other part of Alabama. We were determined to learn the course material despite the teacher having a very inconvenient nervous breakdown, so we mostly taught ourselves in a back corner of the classroom. In subsequent years, we attended the same church and had a great many heart-to-heart talks in his basement across the street from where I lived, eventually becoming water brothers with an unbreakable friendship.
Winter may be the most individualistic person I’ve known. His nature and upbringing arranged for him to pick his paths and simply refuse to live and die except on his terms.
When I went to Auburn’s engineering school, Winter went to U of Alabama on the main campus in Tuscaloosa. When we both bombed out, at least in part due to our minors in LSD, we both became 1A and eligible for the draft, and we knew Uncle Sam had a need for us both in Vietnam. Most likely I’d have washed out of infantry and flown a desk because of an arm injury as a child. But had we both been drafted we might have stuck together for part or all of the experience.
But then came the lottery, and I drew number 300 (safe) while Winter drew 5. He married his sweetheart Terry at 19 and was gone to boot and advanced infantry training after that. When I drove Terry to Fort Knox to visit him, his first report was of a person killed earlier in the day by a stray mortar round.
In ‘Nam, Winter was the M60 guy of his platoon, and I’m told that put him number three in order of priority for the enemy to kill him ASAP in a fire fight. He was injured one day and assumed it would at least get him R&R, but instead he was sent back to the field within a day. He shared stories with me of the troops sitting on barrels of Agent Orange and going through recently defoliated areas, and he also got hepatitis while there. Another third strike against his liver came from his fondness for tequila. He might have lasted with three strikes but COVID-19 was strike four for that organ of his body and it’s failure took him on May 5th of this year.
After returning from the war as a sargent, Winter resumed his quest to be a clown in the Barnum and Bailey’s circus while finishing his undergraduate and graduate studies in history and English, putting himself through with work in area mental health facilities. He taught at a university in Washington State as well as schools in Japan and Taiwan over the years, finishing with history instruction at the Huntsville Alabama area community college and becoming closely affiliated with the city’s historic train museum that survived Sherman’s March to the Sea. He never made it past his B&B auditions despite trying five times, but he was the consummate guide of the museum and author of its official history. Together with close friend Jacqui, he also conducted ghost tours in the area.
I close with Winter celebrating his 71st birthday in Huntsville. Goodbye, Winter. You went out on your terms, and I salute you for your service to our country.
