About Sandy Springs reporter. (Sandy Springs, GA) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 2, 2022)
STREAMING AND IN THEATERS AJFF.ORG COMMENTARY Finding an old Army buddy for old time’s sake Have you ever wondered why midnight on New Year’s Eve is always marked by the same old Scottish song about remember ing old friends, especially those we have forgotten? Eventually, we all long to see someone from our past, often someone who left their mark while just passing through. Per haps that uni versal longing is what makes the song so en during. This was the case for Dun- woody resident Holly Hawkins - or more accu rately for her father, Jimmy Bolding, from rural Bells, Tenn., a town so small most res idents still don’t have internet. The story started in June of 1969, when at age 19, Bolding was drafted and sent to Ft. Campbell, Ga. In 1969, the Vietnam War was tearing the country apart. In the previous year, it had taken the lives of 16,899 Americans. The antiwar movement was at its peak. Though President Nixon had taken office vowing to end the war, his strat egy was to expand and intensify the fighting to pressure the North Viet namese to talk peace. Though American ca sualties were on the de cline, the year ended with 11,780 deaths. The war had al ready brought trage dy to Bolding’s fami ly with the death of his older brother in 1967. His mother was over whelmed by the specter of sending anoth er son to war. Bolding reported to Ft. Campbell with a black cloud over his head. Too far from Bells to go home on weekends, he was lone ly. With pay of only $3 a day, he couldn’t af ford much entertainment either. In 1970, the cloud lifted when he was transferred to Ft. Benning and met Mike Kilgore, a soldier from Marietta. Both self- described “farm boys,” they became fast friends. Mike had a sense of normalcy about him as he was already married to Carol and went home with her most week ends. Even more, Mike was a happy guy and a storyteller. “He was a funny guy,” said Bolding, “and he liked to carry on like the rest of us.” The happiness was short lived because that year Mike was sent to Vietnam, and Bolding was told he too would have to go. After he called home to tell his parents, his mother wrote to Ed Jones, her U.S. Con gressman, pleading that her son Jimmy be spared because she had already lost one son over there. Nobody in the family knows exactly what happened, but Bolding’s order to go never came through, and he served out the rest of his time at Ft. Benning. Mike, howev er, was still in Vietnam, and the two friends wrote back and forth. But adult life has a way of changing things. Bolding went back to Tennessee, where he became a construction supervi sor. “I went to work on the river,” he said, “building riverbanks for the Army Corps of Engineers, moving 17-ton granite rocks to make jetties in ship channels on the Missis sippi and Ohio rivers.” Mike came back to Georgia and spent his career working for Southern Railway. Bolding married. Leading parallel lives, both men spent much time away from home because of their work. In time, they lost touch with each other. But Jimmy Bolding never forgot his fun ny, cheerful friend. And that brings us back to Dunwoody. “Through the years, he’s asked me to help find Mike,” said Holly. “He always said, ‘I sure would like to know if he’s alive and how his life turned out.’ I always told him I would find him.” Holly did the searching because Bolding has no inter net access. “He’s never been on the internet,” said Holly, who for years searched for “Mike” Kilgore on the inter net. The result was lists of names and phone numbers and count less phone calls, never to the right Mike. Then one night, after years of searching, she searched “Michael” instead of “Mike,” and up popped Michael Kilgore and his wife, Carol, in Suwanee. She called her fa ther to give him the news. “I was so excited I was jumping up and down,” she said. “My dad, who never gets excited, said, ‘Really? Really? You really found him?”’ She called Mike and talked - or rather he talked - for 45 minutes. “I can see why my dad liked him. He was very entertaining,” she said. Finally, the two old friends had their long-awaited phone call. “I really didn’t think it would happen,” Bolding said. They plan to meet the next time Bolding visits Dunwoody. I wonder what they were thinking on New Year’s Eve when the old song played. WORTH KNOWING BY CAROL NIEMI Jimmy Bolding of Bells, Tenn., and his daughter Holly Hawkins of Dunwoody. 20 JANUARY 20221 REPORTER NEWSPAPERS reporternewspapers.com ss
