LaVerne Long

[Larry Phipps recalls] I remember the night LaVerne came into my room to tell me he was leaving. I think he was 16 and had gotten Mom's permission to join the Navy, like his big brother. It was wartime and many young men and their families made the same decision.

I missed him then, and a part of me misses him still. I recall visiting him in the Vet hospital in San Francisco (was it the Embarcadaro?), where he was confined to a wheel chair. He was in pain and heavily medicated. But he still found a way to make me laugh.

It was the last time I saw him.