Gone, but not forgotten
Deepa Bharath
Jeanette Chervony has heard it her entire life:
“Hey, Jeanette, you walk like your dad.”
“Jeanette, that’s exactly the way your dad used to say it.”
“You look just like your dad.”
It’s all heartwarming yet distant to the 34-year-old Costa Mesa
resident who has seen her dad only in photos. She was 4 months old when
Eddie Chervony set out to fight the war in Vietnam.
The Puerto Rico native, known for his youthful good looks, exuberance
and courage, was killed while protecting fellow soldiers on May 5, 1968.
He was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross and Silver Star for his
sacrifice. His daughter was barely a year old then.
“I heard he was killed as he shielded another man with his own body,”
she said. “And I believe he rescued six soldiers by physically carrying
them, one by one.”
Chervony loves and adores her dad. Hungry for details, memories and
stories, she set out to learn more about him.
“Who was this man who I’ve never met or known, but I’m so much like
him?” she asked herself.
Chervony did get some answers over the years, but she didn’t stop
there. Her focus has moved from her life and her story to the lives of
other grieving children.
Now, she is seeking out and helping others just like herself who are
struggling with those unanswered questions.
Chervony, a civilian employee of the Costa Mesa Police Department for
15 years, is president of the Southern California chapter of Sons and
Daughters in Touch, a national organization for children of slain Vietnam
War soldiers.
“The kids, as we call them, don’t like to talk about this stuff,” she
said. “It’s hard for us. The war [was] painful and ugly. But our group
looks at how we can make it a positive experience” for the children.
What the children of slain soldiers experience can best be explained
as “delayed grief,” Chervony said.
“It’s hard to look back,” she said. “But it’s important. There are
lessons to be learned from the past. It makes us better people.”
Many of the children are frustrated, Chervony said.
“Anger is part of the grieving process,” she said. “Some don’t want to
deal with it, and that’s OK. But for the rest of us, it’s a bonding
process. It’s like the [Vietnam Veterans Memorial] wall brings us
together.”
On Memorial Day, she made her annual trip to Washington, D.C., to see
the wall erected in honor of the soldiers who died in Vietnam. It’s
almost been a sort of pilgrimage for Chervony over the last eight years.
Usually, she and other “kids” would visit the wall every Father’s Day,
but this time they made it for Memorial Day.
Chervony said she usually takes her son, Eddie, 7, who was named after
his grandfather, with her. But he could not make the trip this year and
was sorely missed, she said.
Chervony’s mother, who helped reconstruct some of her father’s
memories, died four years ago. Chervony is her parents’ only child,
although she has siblings from her mother’s second marriage.
For Chervony, the experience at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial every
year is almost surreal, she said. This time, she and a couple of other
members of Sons and Daughters in Touch hung out by the wall at 3 a.m.
“It was great,” she said. “At that time of day, there was no one
around and it was almost like we had domain over it.”
One of her friends could not reach up and touch her dad’s name because
it was higher on the wall.
“And you know what we did? We gave her a boost up,” Chervony said,
laughing. “She was so happy, so happy. She said she had never thought she
would be able to feel her dad’s name on the stone.”
The group is getting ready to make a trip to Vietnam in 2003, she
said.
And the Internet has opened a new world of possibilities for Chervony,
whose next goal is to connect with one of the six men rescued by her
father.
“Even if I know one of them survived,” she said, “I’ll know my dad
didn’t die in vain.”
FYI
For information about Sons and Daughters in Touch, call Jeanette
Chervony at (714) 444-3707, send her an e-mail at o7 jeanette@sdit.org
f7 or visit o7 https://www.sdit.orgf7 .
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