South

In a recent post I suggested to my fellow bloggers that they should write a post about their best work, and offered as an example my writings about SSgt. Chay. I said that were I to edit my first post about him I would only change the concluding passage, so it would read as follows:

View of the Chappaqua War Memorial facing South.
SSgt. Chay’s name is on the far side, facing South.
South, towards New York City.
South, towards where the Twin Towers once stood.
South, towards the reason he was in Afghanistan.

I think of him often these days, as the first anniversary of his death will soon be upon us.

I mourn his death every time I think of him, and one more piece of my heart then leaves me on its way to Cathy and his family.

[Dave Shields, October 11, 2007.]

Letters from Cathy Min Chay

I’ve recently had an e-mail exhange with Cathy Min Chay, the widow of SSgt. Kyu Hyuk Chay, the subject of the post Chappaqua Memorial Day 2007: Staff Sgt Kyu Hyuk Chay.

---

David,Sorry I haven’t written sooner. I did start to write you an e-mail after reading everything and l didn’t finish it. Once again, I just wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the tribute. It’s the best gift anyone could give me. It really helps me through these incredibly hard times.I eventually would like to create a website but I’m far from doing that.I just moved to a new home in fayetteville. Kyu and I were renting and planning on buying when he got home from his deployment. Since I couldn’t see myself leave the military community I decided to go on with the plan. It’s been a crazy summer with the house hunting, mortgage shopping, etc. It would’ve been our first home. In his last letter he wrote about buying a house…I’ve also decided to stay here because of my new widow friends. We’re a great support system for each other and there’s a group of us who aren’t planning on moving any time soon.

Thank you again. Really, thank you.

Please keep in touch.

with regards,
Cathy

---

To which I responded:

---

Cathy,Thank you so much for the kind words — they mean a great deal to me.I see you are thinking of setting up a web site. I think it would be an invaluable resource, a way to both honor the memory of those who have given their lives in their service to defend our country, and to provide a way for their survivors to communicate with each other.That communication can be vital. You have been thrust by fate into a community you never hoped to join — the survivors of our fallen soldiers. Only those in this community can comprehend and share this experience.

My late niece, Janet Perloff Fossett, died of breast cancer three years ago, before the age of 50. She found some comfort in mail-lists used by cancer victims. She also spent some of her last months writing, first in the form of a series of letters to her son, and for world she prepared a guide for parents on talking about terminal illness. See for example, Living With Illness Tip Sheet – Talking With Children About a Parent’s Serious Illness and Lecture Will Support UAlbany’s Janet D. Perloff Fund . (By the way, the first post cited was written in part by Victoria M. Rizzo, LCSW, Ph.D. She was a colleague of Janet’s, and in an act for which I am my family will forever be grateful to her colleagues at SUNY Albany, they supported her near full-time effort to help Janet through her final months. It was an extraordinary act of kindness.)

As fate would have it, Janet was on the faculty while you and your husband were at SUNY Albany (the school my son attended from 1997-2001). Her husband, Jim Fossett, is still at SUNY Albany today.

If you have no objection, I would like to publish your letter on my blog, but of course that is your call.

I am also going to seek the help of some folks I know of who are as good as it gets when it comes to creating world-class web sites. I’m confident they will be more than willing to volunteer their services.

Thanks again for writing. My thoughts are with you and your family.

thanks,
dave

---

To which Cathy responded:

---

David,I would not mind at all if you posted my response. I wish I had the ability to be more eloquent when choosing my words but it’s still hard just to get out.I’d love any help I can get on creating the website though as I stated there are things I must achieve first. I remember initially thinking about the website when I received an enormous outpour from the Chappaqua community and surrounding. There were many generous donors to my husband’s education fund. I wanted to use it not only to honor my husband but possibly to keep people in touch with my children. But you’re right, I need it too.I could use all the help I can get. I know how much comfort I get from reading your tributes. The days have been hard and don’t seem to get easier. I’m trying to stay busy and productive.

I forgot to ask you if you watched “Inside the Green Berets”. What did you think? I just recently got an e-mail from Steve Hoggard who is the gentleman narrating the story. I got to meet him at my husband’s NSA memorial. He sent me a wonderful e-mail and attached 20 pages of responses National Geographic received. That meant a lot.

I hope you’re doing well and THANK YOU.

Cathy

---

I haven’t seen “Inside the Green Berets,” but I just learned it is available on DVD and I have just ordered a copy: Inside the Green Berets DVD.I noticed renewed interest in Ssgt. Chay a week or so ago when that several people had reached my blog via searches containing his name. When I checked the National Geographic website I noticed they had just rebroadcast that show. I see also that excerpts from the show can be found online at National Geographic Video.

[Written by Dave Shields in September 2007 and first published in his blog, The Wayward Word Press.]

Postscript: Chappaqua Memorial Day 2007: Staff Sgt Kyu Hyuk Chay

My post on SSgt. Kyu Hyuk Chay has drawn several comments, none more touching than the kind words from SSgt. Chay’s wife Cathy.

I didn’t have my camera with me during the ceremony so I took it along yesterday when I had some errands in town. I took some pictures that I have added to the original post.

The post was linked within an hour or so of its posting on Memorial Day, by the site BikerLawBlog.com that is run by Norman Gregory Fernandez, a biker and attorney. He put together a nice page on Memorial Day and I think he picked up the post because I mentioned SSgt. Chay had attended law school. I did see that someone reached my site via a search for “memorial day law.”

By the way, both SSgt. Chay and his wife Cathy attended SUNY Albany, as did my son Michael. It’s a great school.

A picture of Sam Chay, SSgt. Chay’s father, taken just after the ceremony, can be found at Afghanistan / Photos / Zoom. Another picture of the family taken at the ceremony can be found at pixsy. See also ViewImages for several additional pictures of the family taken during the ceremony.

See In Memory of Ssgt. Kyu Hyuk Chay for a video with the touching comments by Sgt. Chay’s brother at the ceremony.

See Kyu H. Chay Sertgeant, United States Army for the news release from Arlington National Cemetery about SSgt. Chay. A picture of his grave at Arlington can be found at Sgt Kyu Hyuk Chay.

Ssgt. Chay’s name was added to a memorial kept by his fellow soldiers: Names of Soldiers Added to Special Operations Memorial. An article from the NSA with additional biographical information can be found at The Story of a Cryptologic Hero SSG Kyu H. Chay. We learn from this article that Sgt. Chays’ family comes from Daegu, Korea, near the city of Pusan, the location of one of the key battles in the Korean war. As it happens, I met a man named Lou Colangelo at a family gathering a year ago. He was in battle from November 1942 until the end of the war. Indeed, he was commended for his bravery in battle by Colonel William Orlando Darby (the founder of the Army Rangers and was the only officer promoted posthumously to General during WWII) only minutes before Darby was killed in battle in northern Italy. Mr.Colangelo mentioned that one of his cousins, George T. Colangelo, was among the first New Yorkers killed in the Korean War, in early August of 1950 during the battle of the Pusan Perimeter.

The Chay family were extremely gracious in bringing along some Korean pastries that they shared after the ceremony. I had one offered to me by SSgt. Chay’s father, to whom I expressed my condolences.

[Written by Dave Shields in May 2007 and first published in his blog, The Wayward Word Press.]

Chappaqua Memorial Day 2007: Staff Sgt Kyu Hyuk Chay

My wife and I went to the Memorial Day parade and observance earlier today in our town of Chappaqua, New York. We have gone to many of them these past few years, and somehow it seemed important that we be there today. Our children had participated in many of the parades in years past, but they are on their own now so we went just for the memorial ceremony.

As we approached the site I saw a lot of people with cameras taking pictures. I then noticed President Clinton was standing about ten feet away. It was the first time I had seen him at the ceremony, though I’ve seen them around town from time to time since they moved here in 1999. I heard Senator Hillary Clinton speak at the Memorial Day ceremony two years ago. I soon learned that she was also there, as was our representative in the U.S. Congress, Nita Lowey.

I looked at the town memorial and saw a photograph attached to it. I realized this would be a Memorial Day like none our town had seen in over thirty years — a new name was being added to the memorial. This day was not about President Clinton, or Senator Clinton, or Congresswoman Lowey. It was about Staff Sgt. Kyu Hyuk Chay.

I first learned about Sgt. Chay one day late last fall when I walked by the dry cleaners near the Starbucks downtown and saw a newspaper article in the window about the death of Sgt. Chay due to a bomb that exploded while he was on combat patrol in Afghanistan in late October. His parents were the owners of the store. He was survived by them, a brother, his wife and two young children, as described in Chappaqua Soldier Killed In Afghanistan. The picture of him in uniform in the story is the same picture I saw on the memorial.

I stopped by the store a couple of times to offer my condolences, but his parents weren’t there when I did, and I must confess that I had forgotten about Sgt. Chay until I saw his picture on the memorial today.

Memorial Day in our town is like that in most towns. We have a small parade with the fire department, the ambulance corps, boy and girl scouts, athletic teams, marching bands, and various groups and we have our own rituals. New in Chappaqua this year was a group of volunteers dressed in the military dress of the Revolutionary War. The local Girl Scout troop continued a tradition they started a couple of years back of collecting and reading biographies of some of our veterans, including some of the those honored on our memorial.

Major Robert Coloumbe of the 105th Air Support Group of the NY National Guard knew Stg. Chay and spoke of him. He said he first met Chay when Chay was working behind the counter of his parent’s store back in his high school days. Stg. Chay expressed an intererest in public service, and Major Coloumbe advised him. At one point Sgt. Chay thought of doing police work, but his interest turned to the military. Sgt. Chay was a graduate of the State University of New York at Albany and attended law school. Major Coloumbe suggested to Sgt. Chay that he could go to Officer’s Candidate School and then join the Judge Advocate General’s Office, the legal arm of the military. He learned later that Sgt. Chay had considered this but had decided that he needed to serve as an enlisted soldier before he could become an officer, as he had to understand the men he would be asked to lead before he could lead them.

Sgt. Chay enlisted in the U. S. Army, only a few credits short of finishing law school. Major Coloumbe detailed how Sgt. Chay then volunteered and qualified as a paratrooper, and later became a member of the Special Forces, the Army’s most elite unit. Sgt. Chay was also a gifted linguist and was fluent in Arabic. The Major’s remarks were very touching and very personal. He was quite eloquent. You can read more about him and some of the others at the parade, including Jim McCauley, a Vietnam vet who led the ceremony. in Name of soldier killed in Afghanistan added to New Castle war memorial. Sgt. Chay’s brother, Kue Tay Chay, spoke of his brother and thanked the town on the family’s behalf.

The ceremony ended with the unveiling of Sgt. Chay’s name on the memorial, followed by a 21-gun salute, a closing prayer by Deacon Devlin. I spoke with Deacon Devlin after the cermony, to ask after one of his children who was a classmate of one of my children and also to ask after his daughter Katie, who is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and was at the ceremony two years ago, just days before she was to leave for duty in Afghanistan. (I learned she returned safely and is now on duty in Colorado.) Deacon Devlin chose as the closing words of his prayer words we have all heard many times, although not usually as a prayer. Here they are:

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Ours is a simple memorial, a stone column about eight feet tall topped with a figure of an eagle. It stands just in front of the train station. Many town residents commute to work in New York City each day. About a thousand of those residents were at the ceremony today, and I know that from today on some of them will think of Sgt. Chay as they pass the memorial in the morning after getting a cup of coffee at the “Dunkin D.” His name can be found on the side that faces the direction the morning commuters are headed. They are going south.

View of the Chappaqua War Memorial facing south. SSgt. Chay’s name is on the far side, facing south. South towards New York City, south towards where the Twin Towers once stood, south towards the reason he was in Afghanistan.

Staff Sgt. Kyu Hyuk Chay — May His Memory Be a Blessing.

[Written by Dave Shields in May 2007 and first published in his blog, The Wayward Word Press.]

The Chay Posts by Dave Shields

The next few posts are copies of the posts written by Dave Shields that were first published in his blog, The Wayward Word Press.

The first was published on Memorial Day 2006, the day Dave first learned about SSgt. Chay, when he attended a Memorial Day Ceremony in Chappaqua, New York, during which SSgt. Chay’s name was added to the town’s War Memorial.

His was the first name added to the Memorial in over thirty years.

[Written by Dave Shields.]

Kyu Hyuk Chay

This site honors the memory of Staff Sgt. Kyu Hyuk Chay, killed in action while serving in Afghanistan, October 2006. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
h
The site was launched on 28 Sep 2007 and more content will be forthcoming.

[Written by Dave Shields.]