I Wish I Could Go Back In Time...

I wish I could go back in time to 1954 - 1959, and once again be the fourth person, in a Saturday game of poker with my father (whom I also watched the Friday night boxing bouts on TV with), and my two grown up brothers, Michael and Bob.

I was a little kid back then when I played poker with the ‘men’ in the family.

My brother Michael was 16 years old the day I was born, and my brother Bob was 14.5 years old. So when I was age 10 my older brothers were 26 and 24.5 respectively.

I will always remember the Saturday poker games we played on the kitchen table where we played for pennies. I remember that my mother didn’t approve of my father and brothers teaching me, the ‘baby’ in the family, to play poker.

Funny thing is that after my father passed away in March 1959 the years passed, and as my mother ‘aged’ she became a Friday night and Sunday afternoon ‘church bingo’ gambler, which is gambling no matter how you slice that pie.

As for me, as an adult, I don’t gamble but I will always remember with great fondness those Saturday card games where I was included despite the fact that I was just a child, a female child.

My oldest, older brother, Michael Franklin Garnier, was fluent in the German language. While he was still a student at Harvard , he was drafted into the peacetime Army, and was sent to Germany where he served as a Science Instructor to other troops. After receiving an honorable discharge from the Army Michael returned to the states, and returned to college. Instead of going back to Harvard, where he completed his first 2 years of college, he entered The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) where he finished his last 2 years of college, graduating in June 1959.

My brother Michael, was an inventor as well as an engineer. He worked at International Business Machines (I.B.M.), first in Poughkeepsie, New York, and after a couple of years he was moved to the I.B.M. in San Jose, California. Michael lost his life at sea, while on a fishing trip off the California coast, on September 24, 1980. Michael loved deep-sea fishing. The only solace I have is that he died doing something that he loved!

Michael’s boat was a tri-hull that he name ‘The Scamp’. No one really knows what happened to my brother Michael on the day he died. He was found 3 miles away from his boat by the Coast Guard on the morning of September 25, 1980, in the ocean, with his life jacket on. The assumption was made that he passed on the morning of September 24th before his body drifted away from his boat. His boat was found 3 miles away, upside down, in Aldo's Marina in Santa Cruz.

God was unable to save my brother’s life so he brought my brother home to his family by assisting the Coast Guard in their search that morning, in the vast Pacific Ocean. I know in my heart that it was God, who directed the Coast Guard that morning to the exact spot where my brother Michael was before his body would be lost forever to the sea.

It has been thirty (30) years since the sea claimed my brother Michael's life ; I would like to know exactily what happened to my brother Michael on that horrible day! It doesn't make sense to me that he would be found dead yet still in his life jacket, three miles away from his boat! The month was September so the Pacific Ocean water was cold but not freezing as would be the case, later in the year.

All of his life my brother Michael loved to listen to classical music, and he was an avid gardener. At home my brother grew orchids, indoors, as one of his hobbies. Michael was a devout Roman Catholic, he served the Catholic Church as an alter boy along with his younger brother Robert Steven while they were both children living in St. Patrick’s Parish, in Lynn, Massachusetts.

Michael was a Knight of Columbus. The Knights of Columbus is a prestigious social group, composed of devout, religious men, within the Roman Catholic Church.

After he returned from his military service in occupied Germany, Michael would take his baby sister Carol to Mass every single Sunday for the next six years. He did this because the family had moved, and the new church they attended was too far away from the family home for his sister to walk to, on Sunday morning. So Michael drove his sister to Mass.

This was the time when I, his baby sister, got to know my big brother as a 'person'. After church Michael would often visit his old friends from his college days. He took me along on these trips to visit his friends.

While in college my brother Michael played a large bass fiddle in a jazz club in Cambridge Mass., on the weekends. I will always remember hearing my brother practicing on that fiddle in the evenings during the week.

Michael's friends were all professionals. Among Michael's friends was a man named Hank Collins who was a well known cartoonist at that time, and whose cartoons appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and Esquire among other well know publications of that period.

Upon his death in California, my brother Michael left four children: Melinda Sue Garnier Apollo, who lives in California, 2 sons Michael and Mark both living in Ohio, and a second daughter named Michelle, who lives in Portland, Oregon.

Michael’s mother Christine Garnier survived him for six years; Christine passed away in Skyline Convalescent Hospital, San Jose, California in 1986 of pneumonia. I wrote a Blog about my mother that I called; "My Mother’s Love Sustained Me". ’I took care of my mother for six years after my older brother Michael passed away.

It was a terrible fate for our mother Christine to survive both of her sons. Somehow she was able to go on despite her loss.

I survived my mother and both of my brothers, and now I am able to place memory pages for them on the Internet. We all need to be remembered for all that we have accomplished in our lives.

None of us should be forgotten!

My brother Robert Steven Garnier (Bob) joined the Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (NJROTC) while still in high school, and he was honorably discharged from the NJROTC when he graduated from Lynn, Classical High. After graduating from high school Bob, who later adopted the nickname Steve, joined and served in the U.S. Air Force, flying missions over Korea in the Far East Air Forces Combat Cargo Command, in the Military Air Transport Service (MATS), during the Korean War. MATS was under General Douglas MacArthur, and later in the war, MATS became the 315th Air Division Supply. My brother Bob loved military life; he loved the discipline, he loved the uniforms; he loved everything military!

While my brother Bob was in the NJROTC in high school I was a very young child; I was two to three years old yet I remember seeing my brother wearing a white naval uniform complete with the white sailor hat that was worn at that time. I also remember how meticulous my brother was in his appearance. In my mind’s eye, I can still see him do the ‘spit shine' on his leather, black dress shoes that he wore with both his daytime 'whites,' and his dark navy blue, dress uniform.

Robert Steven (Bob or perhaps you knew him as Steve) was on a mission over Korea when his plane was hit by enemy ground fire. My brother was the only survivor of the resulting plane crash. He was rescued and taken to a M.A.S.H., and from there he was transported to Japan before being returned to the states.

I remember that when I was a young child my brother explained to me that what he did on the planes was put parachutes on boxes of supplies, and then push these boxes out the door of the plane pulling the appropriate lines on the parachutes to open the chutes so they would drift downward to our fighting forces on the ground below. As an adult I have learned that these missions were to support United Nations (U.N.) troops fighting on the ground. This happened while North Korean forces, along with troops from China, were over running Southern Korea.

The first real hospital Bob was shipped to was Tokyo General in Tokyo, Japan. I remember this yet it isn’t mentioned in the news article I have posted at the top of this memory page Blog.

Bob was then shipped stateside to Letterman General Army Hospital in San Francisco where he underwent major surgery on his spine. Bob's back was severely broken in both the thoratic and the lumbar spine. He had laid in the rice paddy with the planes wreckage for a long time before he was rescued. My family will always be greatful to the brave soldiers whom carried out those rescue missions such as the one where my brother was rescued.

After his surgery at Letterman my brother was shipped across the United States to St. Albans Hospital, which is located in New York State, not Vermont as the news article states.

I remember, I was very young when I accompanied my mother to New York, by train, to visit my brother in St. Albans Hospital. I will never forget the memories I still carry of seeing all the young men walking around in the corridors of that hospital, whom had been injured by North Korean fire.

I remember seeing young men in the cafeteria with half of their faces blown off, and I wondered, as a young child will wonder, how they would get along in the world once they would be returned back to their hometowns?

What I saw in St. Albans Hospital was never shown on the popular TV show M.A.S.H., which stared Alan Alda and Loretta Swit.

The fact is that the 'Korean War' the war that was never declared, was a 'War and Hell' on this Earth for all, who were sent to serve and fight.

After returning home from Korea, returning from the multiple hospitals he had experienced, my bother Bob remained with his birth family for many years, before moving on in life.

Bob contracted Rheumatoid Arthritis while he laid in the rice paddy in Korea where his plane crashed. My brother’s doctor explained to my family that my brother contracted this form of arthritis because Koreans fertilize their crops with untreated human feces. Untreated human waste (feces) contains many live diseases that the humans whom contributed the human waste, had in their bodies. Other forms of arthritis come from other causes; Rheumatoid Arthritis is the only form of arthritis that is passed from one human host to another human host from human waste or from some other intimate form of contact. Because Rheumatoid Arthritis is caused by a parasite, there is a blood test that can detect the parasite, and confirm that the disease is Rheumatoid Arthritis, and not another form of arthritis.

While living in Poughkeepsie, New York with his family, Bob made the decision to move to Washington, D.C. to work in the U.S. Post Office there. After his mother Christine moved across the country to California with his brother Michael, and his sister Carol, Bob made the decision to move to California to be closer to his birth family.

Robert Steven (Bob or Steve if you prefer) met and married a woman who was the office manager in his California doctor’s office. The ladies name was Linda Talley. Bob and Linda were married in 1965 at The Highlands Inn in Carmel, California. Sadly, within five (5) years Bob and Linda were divorced.

In November 1969, during a spell of remorse over his divorce from his wife, whom he still loved, Bob traveled on the road to the Highlands Inn where he and his former wife were married in 1965. Bob drove through a stop sign in Carmel, California, and a C.H.P. officer took chase after him.

For some reason I will never completely understand, instead of stopping when the officer went after him, my brother increased his speed over a treacherous piece of road that leads up to the Highlands Inn. Bob’s car, which was a very heavy Cadillac Eldorado, didn't make a turn; instead it flew off the road, crashing down a cliff, falling over two hundred feet to the beach below.

My brother was killed instantly because he was thrown out of his vehicle, hitting the boulders embedded in the cliff; internal injuries killed him. He landed on the sandy beach below the cliff. His body was being carried out to sea by the tide when the C.H.P. rescue unit reached him; retrieving his body.

It seems that even though God can't stop most terrible things from happening to us in this life, he does often 'rescue' us or at least 'bring us home'. I saw this happen at the end of both of my brothers' lives.

My brother Michael Franklin and I traveled together to the Monterey Morgue to identify and claim our brother's body. We had his body taken home to San Jose for his funeral.

Robert Steven Garnier had a full military funeral because he was an honorably discharged, U.S. Air Force War Hero, whom had fought in the Korean War. My brother Bob was awarded the honor of the Purple Heart for his bravery.

I don't remember my brother talking about receiving the Purple Heart. I learned only recently that he received this honor when I found an online page dedicated to my brother, that was posted by someone connected with the U.S. Air Force, and on that page it has pictures and text of the various medals my brother was awarded. I have found that the U.S. Air Force has also releaaed, and has published online, pages of the names and pictures of many other Korean War Heroes that also received the honor of the Purple Heart.

At one point during my brother's funeral, jet planes from Moffit Naval Air Base in Sunnyvale, California flew over the grave side ceremony. This was back in November 1969; when Moffit Naval Air Base was still open.

I remember the soldiers wearing full military dress uniform removing the hugh flag that was draped over Bob's coffin. It took two (2) soldiers, to fold his flag military style, then one of the soldiers handed the folded flag to my mother Christine Garnier.

My mother in turn gave the folded flag to me because she knew how much I loved my bother, and she knew that I would take good care of it. My young son was there, at the graveside ceremony. He was only two years old.

My heart was broken over my brother Bob's death! Ten years later, in September 1980, my heart would be broken again when my dear brother Michael would also lose his life in a boating accident.

Today, my son has possession of the flag that was draped over the coffin of his ‘Korean War Hero’ uncle Bob. Out of respect for my brother, this flag has never been opened since it was draped over my brother's coffin, and folded by the soldiers at his graveside.



God Bless All Who Serve Our Country!

Both of my brothers were brave, brave in the choices they made in their lives; both were heroes.
 In the case of both of my brothers, Michael Franklin Garnier and Robert Steven Garnier, the ocean, the vast, mysterious blue and green ocean, played a role in their deaths.

Carol Garnier Dutra

This Blog is a true life memory page for my two older brothers, Michael Franklin Garnier and Robert Steven Garnier; both Brave, both Heroes.

There are pictures below this text of both of my brothers. Please scroll down this page to view these pictures.In time, I will add more pictures of both of my brothers.

Copyright © 2010/2011/2014 by Carol Garnier Dutra