Brothers in arms didn't grow old together

May 19—Being the big brother, Joe Jake Anaya led by example. That's been his cross to bear for 55 years.

"I quit high school in the 10th grade and enlisted in the Army in November of '64. I sent money back home to help my family," Anaya said one recent day.

The son of a railroad worker and a homemaker in Galisteo, Anaya feared poverty more than bullets. He joined the Army as the U.S. government began deploying more and more soldiers to the war in Vietnam.

"I didn't care. I was young, only 17. I was fearless, and I guess I was a little crazy," Anaya said.

He spent more than a year in Vietnam when the fighting was heavy and fierce. Anaya returned home in 1967. The war was over for him, but not for millions of others on both sides.

Against angry protests, Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, kept sending U.S. soldiers to fight for the South Vietnamese government in its war against North Vietnam.

College enrollments swelled across the United States as millions of young men sought deferments from military service. Other kids, most of them from rural outposts or blue-collar towns, expected to one day be drafted.

Another faction decided not to bother with college or waiting for a draft notice. This group was populated by men who enlisted in the armed forces.

Joe's brother, George Michael Anaya, was one of them.

George Michael graduated from Santa Fe High School in 1969. Like Joe, he joined the Army. In contrast to his older brother, George Michael was an introvert.

"He was very quiet, very shy. The kindest, most respectful boy," said Joe's wife, Teresa Anaya, who was in the same graduating class as George Michael.

At age 18, George Michael began his tour in Vietnam. It was Christmastime, 1969. By then, the war looked different to his brother.

A gung-ho soldier during his own service, Joe feared he had influenced George Michael to become a combatant. Raw recruits had a high casualty rate in Vietnam. Many like George Michael were barely out of high school when they were thrown into battle in that strange and distant land.

An infantry soldier in the 101st Airborne Division, George Michael made no complaints about his enlistment. Combat was part of the job he agreed to do.

He had been in South Vietnam for three and a half months when his unit engaged enemy attackers in Thua Thien Province on March 30, 1970. The firefight was chaotic.

George Michael didn't survive, but Army records describe his death as a "non-hostile" action. That was true only in the most technical sense.

"He died from friendly fire," Teresa Anaya said.

Joe said the family might not have learned what went wrong if not for another foot soldier.

"One of his companions over there told us that cannon fire fell short," Joe said. George Michael died in a blast intended for the enemy.

Joe, now 75, wept as he told the story. He's contended with survivor's guilt for most of his life. The pain and regret won't go away.

He knows George Michael didn't see much in his 18 years except a slice of Northern New Mexico and combat in Vietnam. Teresa said George Michael had friends at Santa Fe High, but he didn't have a girlfriend. The kid brave enough to go to war didn't assert himself in social settings.

More anguish followed for Teresa and Joe because of another violent episode decades later.

Their 39-year-old daughter, Jeanette Anaya, died in 2013 when rookie New Mexico State Police Officer Oliver Wilson fired 16 shots into her car after a strange roadway pursuit.

New Mexico's state government paid Jeanette Anaya's family $3 million to stave off a civil lawsuit. But a grand jury decided 8-4 the police shooting was justified, a decision that meant no criminal charges were filed against Wilson.

The outcome gnaws at the Anayas, as does the war in Vietnam. Maybe the pain lessens a little in weeks like the one ahead.

Memorial Day is impetus for strangers to remember warriors such as George Michael, who's buried at Santa Fe National Cemetery. Galisteo honors him with a plaque near Puente bridge.

Still, even the day commemorating the nation's fallen soldiers is difficult for Joe.

"He feels so guilty," Teresa said.

He shouldn't. Politicians entangled the United States in the war in Vietnam.

Joe and George Michael fought in Southeast Asia as teenagers who were not allowed to vote. Duty required them to follow political leaders who were much older and supposedly wiser.

Somehow, though, survivor's guilt never seemed to afflict the braintrust in Washington that mandated the war.

Ringside Seat is an opinion column about people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at msimonich@sfnewmexican.com or 505-986-3080.