Mar. 31, 2010
Ada Randall's brother-in-law, Sgt. John E. Miller, died in Vietnam. West Side Cafe employees connected her with an Ohio man who served with Miller and saw his picture at the restaurant.
War has a way of surfacing at the most improbable times and unlikely places.
The hostess and waitresses at the West Side Cafe can attest.
Not long ago, on an ordinary, crowded Thursday morning, a man visiting from Ohio came in for a plate of bacon and eggs, saw a photo on the wall and dissolved into tears, unable to speak.
Snip
"I just couldn't believe seeing that picture down there," Taylor said by phone, having returned to Cincinnati.
Miller's sister-in-law, Ada Randall, could hardly believe it either. It was her idea to hang Miller's picture on the cafe wall a few months ago, not expecting to talk to someone who was among the last to see him alive.
"It was like I had gotten a message from Johnny," she said. "It shook me up for several days." -->-->-->
Vietnam story gets more complicated with a new coincidence
Apr. 01, 2010
This picture was taken at a base camp in Vietnam in early 1966. Sgt. John E. Miller is the tall, dark-haired man in the middle of the back row. Galen Taylor is directly in front of him, squatting and wearing a bush hat.
Don't try to figure out the odds of the story below actually happening.
The Star-Telegram ran a story Wednesday about an Ohio man who recently and unexpectedly saw a portrait hanging in the West Side Cafe of a soldier whose body he carried out after a brutal firefight.
Galen Taylor, who lives in Cincinnati, spent the remainder of his trip to Fort Worth reconnecting with the surviving family of Army Sgt. John E. Miller, who was killed on June 11, 1966, in the same battle in which Taylor was wounded.
Taylor had never expected to find Miller's family in the Fort Worth area, much less see his picture on the wall of a cafe, because as far as he knew Miller was from Illinois.
But the story gets more improbable.
Late Wednesday afternoon, Maria Lofton called the Star-Telegram from her home outside Joshua in Johnson County.
"My husband, Staff Sgt. Glen Lofton, was killed June 11, 1966, and he was in the 28th Infantry," she said. "Isn't that a coincidence?"
That's an understatement to Taylor, who can't quite believe that three young men from different parts of the country would be in the same infantry unit, the same battle and that all three of their families would eventually make their way to the Fort Worth area.
"I didn't expect this to happen, but I'm glad it did," Taylor said. "It was meant to be, I guess." -->-->-->
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