The Last Warrior?
by
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Sunday, April 6, 2014
Janis and Suzan are not coming by this evening;
there will be no recording session and I am alone.
Sitting on the sofa, my mind is blank. It’s dark
outside; my thoughts drift aimlessly through my past stopping on April 6, 1980,
my wedding day, Easter Sunday.
I was so in love; we were so in love. Connie
suggested that we change the date from June so we could be married on Easter
Sunday. I always thought there was something special about us; but, then I knew
it. There hasn’t been an Easter Sunday on that date since and I don’t know when
there will be another, maybe never.
Getting our wedding album down from the shelf, I
lovingly touch my bride. How I wish she were at my side. My gaze shifts to the
pictures of our children hanging on the wall. Scott, Paul, and Sara each had a
series of photos taken every 6 months from birth to age 5. In the hallway are
the rest of our family photos. I can feel Connie’s presence.
In the kitchen, I remove the champagne from the
refrigerator, pop the cork which slams into the wall, and pour two glasses of
the bubbly beverage.
“I’ll drink yours for you, Connie.” I laughingly say
to myself. I know she won’t like that.
Again my mind goes blank and I sit on the sofa as
though frozen to it; I think of nothing as I hold the champagne glass in my
hand.
Suddenly loving feelings fill my heart as a
kaleidoscope of memories of our life together come to keep me company. We
shared so much love and laughter as a couple and then as a family.
Standing and looking around the room, my eyes stop
on the clear glass rectangular plate I gave Connie for our thirteenth
anniversary. I had the shape of Connie’s favorite flower, the rose, sandblasted
onto the edge. In the middle of the plate, with a rose separating them, are our
engraved wedding vows; Connie’s on the left and mine on the right. We had
written our own without discussing
them:
“Larry, I have
asked myself why I love you. I love for many different reasons. But first of
all, I love you because you are so gentle and you bring out the gentleness in
me. I love you because we are so much alike, sharing friends, ideals, and love.
I also love you because we are so different in our interests and our hobbies.
You do bring a balance to my life. I love the idea of walking hand in hand with
you through life, to an unknown destination, knowing that we have already
arrived simply because we are walking hand in hand. Today, in place of vows, I
would like to give to you the one possession that I have held most dear.
Without reservation, Larry, I give you my heart.”
“Today, Connie, we are
surrounded by our families and our friends. You have given to me the love of
your life and that of your heart. I shall handle and care for these treasures
throughout my life. I give to you, Connie, the love of my life, the honesty and
wisdom that I have acquired during the years of my life. We choose to marry
today, not because we belong to each other, but because we belong together. We
have been friends, and friends we shall remain. We have been lovers and lovers,
we’ll always be. Today, this Easter Sunday is just a moment and this moment is
‘Our Time’. I love you, Lady.” As I read the words, the tears flow. I miss her and
the kids so much; I love her even more today than I did the day she and our
kids died so long ago.
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Book Details
About the Book
This book is a fictionalized autobiography spanning the years 1939-2036. The main character, Larry Darwin Marville, is a career Navy man, spending twenty years in the service. He is among the first Navy SEAL’s and the recipient of two Medals of Honor. When his two friends, closer to him than brothers, are missing in action in Vietnam at the end of the war, he retires from the Navy and does a clandestine re-entry into Vietnam bringing out three prisoners of war.
Larry begins a new career in California and becomes
a family man. After eighteen years of bliss, he is widowed and moves into his
final destiny - becoming our nation’s last warrior. Remembering the oath he
took as a seventeen year old entering the Naval Service in 1956, he understands
the difference between foreign and domestic foes. Dealing with corrupt
politicians with the only tools they understand when all else has failed, this
fifty-nine year old man becomes our Nation’s Guardian, returning the United
States to freedom, freeing her from political corruption at the highest level
of government.
You’ll laugh, cry and your heart will pump faster
through the action filled pages of love, war, history, and daily life.
This novel is filled with true experience, but a
fictional tale it is. It is up to the reader to determine when fact becomes
fiction.
About the Author
Larry D. Harville spent twenty years in the Navy,
assigned to Patrol Squadrons, flying as an Aircrew Ordnance man. He retired
with about seven thousand flight hours in several models of the P2V Neptune,
P5M Martin, and P3A, B, and C Orion aircraft. He attended Advanced Aviation
Ordnance Class “B” School in 1968. Larry’s final assignment was as Weapons
Department Chief, Naval Air Station Alameda, Alameda, California. After retiring from the service, a trucking
career was pursued. Living in Los Gatos, California, with his wife and three
children, Larry loves to get together with his Navy buddies. Not only does he
like to tell a good story, he likes to hear one. Larry says, “I may do many
things in life, but in my heart, I will always be a Chief Petty Officer in the
United States Navy.”
Larry is planning several more writing projects in
the near future after moving to Bozeman, Montana.