Christmas 2018: Be Grateful. And Keep Smiling

A letter written by Mrs. Eleanor Wimbish, Mother of Sgt. William R. "Spanky" Stocks, who was killed in action in a helicopter crash in Vietnam on Feb 13 1969. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Jocko Willink?

  Dear Bill

• 0:05Jocko Willink?

  Today is February 13th, 1984.

• 0:12Jocko Willink?

  I came to this black wall again to see and touch your name.

• 0:20Jocko Willink?

  And as I do, I wonder if anyone ever stops to realize that next to your name on this black wall

• 0:29Jocko Willink?

  is your mother's heart.

• 0:32Jocko Willink?

  A heartbroken 15 years ago today

• 0:37Jocko Willink?

  when you lost your life in Vietnam.

• 0:45Jocko Willink?

  And as I look at your name, William R. Stocks, I think of how many, many times I used to wonder how scared and homesick you must have been in that strange country called Vietnam.

• 1:03Jocko Willink?

  And if, and how it might have changed you.

• 1:09Jocko Willink?

  For you were the most happy-go-lucky kid in the world.

• 1:14Jocko Willink?

  Hardly ever sad or unhappy.

• 1:18Jocko Willink?

  And until the day I die, I will see you as you laughed at me. Even when I was very mad at you, and the next thing I knew, we were laughing together.

• 1:34Jocko Willink?

  But on this past New Year's Day, I had my answer.

• 1:40Jocko Willink?

  I talked by phone to a friend of yours from Michigan who spent your last Christmas and the last four months of your life with you.

• 1:51Jocko Willink?

  Jim told me how you died. For he was there and saw the helicopter crash.

• 2:00Jocko Willink?

  He told me how you had flown your quota

• 2:04Jocko Willink?

  and had not been scheduled to fly that day.

• 2:08Jocko Willink?

  How the regular pilot was unable to fly and had been replaced by someone with less experience.

• 2:15Jocko Willink?

  How they did not know the exact cause of the crash.

• 2:21Jocko Willink?

  How it was either hit by enemy fire or that they hit a pole or something unknown.

• 2:30Jocko Willink?

  How the blades went through the chopper

• 2:35Jocko Willink?

  and hit you.

• 2:38Jocko Willink?

  How you lived about a half hour, but were unconscious, and therefore did not suffer.

• 2:49Jocko Willink?

  He said how your jobs were like sitting ducks.

• 2:53Jocko Willink?

  They would send you men out to draw the enemy into the open. And then they would send in the big guns and planes to take over.

• 3:05Jocko Willink?

  Meantime, death came to so many of you.

• 3:12Jocko Willink?

  He told me how, after a while over there, instead of a yellow streak, the men got a mean streak down their backs.

• 3:24Jocko Willink?

  Each day the streak got bigger, and the men became meaner.

• 3:32Jocko Willink?

  Everyone but you, Bill.

• 3:36Jocko Willink?

  He said how you stayed the same happy-go-lucky guy that you were when you arrived in Vietnam.

• 3:44Jocko Willink?

  How your warmth and friendliness drew the guys to you.

• 3:49Jocko Willink?

  How your lieutenant gave you the nickname of Spanky. And soon your group, Jim included, were all known as Spanky's gang.

• 4:01Jocko Willink?

  How when you died, it made it so much harder on them. For you were their moral support.

• 4:12Jocko Willink?

  And he said how you, of all people,

• 4:16Jocko Willink?

  should never have been the one to die.

• 4:23Jocko Willink?

  Oh God, how it hurts to write this.

• 4:28Jocko Willink?

  But I must face it and then put it to rest.

• 4:35Jocko Willink?

  I know that after Jim talked to me, he must have relived it all over again and suffered so.

• 4:44Jocko Willink?

  Before I hung up the phone, I told Jim I loved him. Loved him for just being your close friend and for sharing the last days of your life with you.

• 4:59Jocko Willink?

  And for being there with you when you died.

• 5:05Jocko Willink?

  How lucky you were to have him for a friend.

• 5:09Jocko Willink?

  And how lucky he was to have had you.

• 5:20Jocko Willink?

  Later that same day, I received a phone call from a mother in Billings, Montana.

• 5:26Jocko Willink?

  She had lost her daughter, her only child, a year ago.

• 5:32Jocko Willink?

  She needed someone to talk to, for no one would let her talk about the tragedy.

• 5:39Jocko Willink?

  She said she had seen me on television on New Year's Eve after the Christmas letter I wrote to you and left at this memorial had drawn newspaper and television attention.

• 5:52Jocko Willink?

  She said she had been thinking about me all day and just had to talk to me.

• 5:58Jocko Willink?

  She talked to me of her pain and seemingly needed me to help her with it.

• 6:06Jocko Willink?

  I cried with this heartbroken mother.

• 6:10Jocko Willink?

  And after I hung up the phone, I laid my head down and cried as hard for her.

• 6:17Jocko Willink?

  Here was a mother calling me for help with her pain over the loss of her child, a grown daughter.

• 6:25Jocko Willink?

  And as I sobbed, I thought, how can I help her with her pain? When I have never completely been able to cope with my own.

• 6:37Jocko Willink?

  They tell me the letters I write to you and leave here at this memorial are waking others up to the fact that there is still much pain left after all these years from the Vietnam War.

• 6:51Jocko Willink?

  But this I know.

• 6:56Jocko Willink?

  I would rather to have had you for 21 years and all the pain that goes with losing you

• 7:05Jocko Willink?

  than never to have had you at all.

• 7:13Jocko Willink?

  Mom.

• 7:24Jocko Willink?

  And that was a letter written by Mrs. Eleanor Wimbish, mother of Sergeant William R. Spanky Stocks, from Glen Burnie, Maryland, who was killed in action in a helicopter crash in Vietnam on February 13th, 1969.

• 7:51Jocko Willink?

  That letter was one of many that she has written and places beneath Panel 32, where his name is etched into the Vietnam Memorial Wall, along with more than 58,000 other names of our fallen heroes.

• 8:14Jocko Willink?

  And I read an interview with Mrs. Wimbish from 1990.

• 8:22Jocko Willink?

  And in that interview, she said, "When my son died, I wrote my pledge.

• 8:30Jocko Willink?

  I said, 'I will not now or ever let people forget.'"

• 8:40Jocko Willink?

  So

• 8:44Jocko Willink?

  For Mrs. Wimbish

• 8:48Jocko Willink?

  And her son, Bill Spanky Stocks

• 8:53Jocko Willink?

  During this holiday season, let us all Remember

• 9:02Jocko Willink?

  Remember the service And supreme sacrifice of so many

• 9:14Jocko Willink?

  And also

• 9:17Jocko Willink?

  Let us learn some important lessons From Mrs. Wimbish and from her son

• 9:27Jocko Willink?

  From Mrs. Wimbish, we learn To be thankful for what we have had Even if it is lost And even if that loss causes pain, still

• 9:43Jocko Willink?

  Be thankful

• 9:47Jocko Willink?

  And from her son, Bill, we can learn that even in the face of horror and death

• 9:56Jocko Willink?

  We can maintain our warmth and our friendliness and that that warmth and friendliness can guide and support others

• 10:07Jocko Willink?

  Can help bolster the spirit of those around you

• 10:14Jocko Willink?

  By simply

• 10:16Jocko Willink?

  Smiling

• 10:22Jocko Willink?

  So

• 10:24Jocko Willink?

  As we celebrate the holidays

• 10:27Jocko Willink?

  Let us be thankful for what we have

• 10:31Jocko Willink?

  And like Sergeant William Bill Spanky Stocks

• 10:39Jocko Willink?

  Keep smiling

• 10:43Jocko Willink?

  Have a Merry Christmas And a Happy New Year