Art Laboe, the legendary DJ who passed away recently, broadcast a dedication to me on my birthday when I was in an
overseas DoDEA high school. It played over Armed Forces Radio Pacific,
as it was then called. The request wasn’t called in but mailed in some
time in advance, but Laboe made it happen on the right date.
The song was “Baby Blue” by the Echoes, popular decades before I was
born, but it seemed fresh and new to me. I still remember hearing that
dedication over the radio and being amazed and thrilled. And I still
love that song.
The boy who dedicated it to me, a service brat as was I, I had known since we were seven years old. Parental transfers meant we often didn't see each other for years, but we always kept in touch, and it was always assumed by both of us that we would marry. We were meant for each other. There could be no doubt.
Then 9/11 happened and as soon as he was old enough, even though he had been accepted at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego, he postponed his education to join the Marine Corps. He was wounded in the fighting at Najaf and after a series of infections and amputations lasting more than a year, died of septic shock.
