Freddogg Off The Chain

“He died on the road. He was just a poor boy a long way from home. He was a friend of mine.
When I think about it I still can’t keep from crying. He was a friend of mine.” Jerry Jeff Walker


Operation Desert Storm began in January of 1991 when the United States commenced to bomb Baghdad on the holiday of Martin Luther King. Sixty Cape high school students had protested the day before and on “War Commencement to Liberate Kuwait Day” –a full school day-these students were lock downed inside In- School Suspension for their unauthorized demonstration. This was the day CNN was born and inside the school library televisions were fixed to this news station to help students alleviate their anxieties about living inside a nation at war. But when the librarian left for coffee students quickly changed the channel to The Brady Bunch and began petting each other. Such is the world of global awareness for most high school students.
I was teaching several Problems of Democracy classes that school year and my classes always began with a discussion of four current events I had written on the board. I can go head to head with the best extemporaneous speakers on the planet having once done 50 entertaining minutes on a Clark Bar wrapper just to prove I could do it. Show me a veteran teacher talking to students off a detailed lesson plan and I’ll show you 20 teenage boys having sexual fantasies of Florence Henderson.
I saw a headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer “First Philadelphia Area solider dies in Desert Storm.” The date was February 18. I wrote the headline on the board, bracketed the first three paragraphs, and went for morning coffee.
Back in the classroom I read the first paragraph. The story was somber and I was in a good mood but read the news respectfully. Dr. Major John Gillespie, 34, of Yeadon, PA was killed on February 17 in Saudi Arabia when his Jeep flipped over. That is as far as I got. I stood alone in my history. I was on total disconnect. The faces of 1991 Cape students became a frozen watercolor. I was adrenaline alerted, processing every stimuli and hearing every sound, but I was out of body in a different place.
I was in 1974 coaching football and track at the Mitchell School in Haverford, Pennsylvania. Mitchell was on the Philadelphia Main Line, a beautiful campus--converted mansion and grounds. Some students were College prep while most were classified as “Emotionally Disturbed” but actually weren’t; it was a ruse to get state funding. John Gillespie was a defensive end and shot putter. He was one of my guys. Gillespie became a doctor and Gillespie was gone.
Gillespie talked like a doctor writes prescriptions except for his liberal use of the MF phraseology, which always sounded like “muffler.” John was mentally quick as a cat, his writings were indiscernible, and his language delivery made you laugh even though most “mufflers” had no idea what he was talking about.
I always use John as an example of my own ineptness in coaching the weight events in track. I started his senior season with his throwing 48 feet in the shot put, and by the end of the season county meet I had him down to 41”6”. “That muffler don’t know nothin’ bout coaching no muffler shot put,” Gillespie said, shaking his head.
John was a defensive end on my crazy team that played behind warlike face paint. We destroyed most people; we played and had a great blend of colors, languages and talent.
During an afternoon game at Pennington Prep with no scoreboard, I yelled for John to “get the time” from the referee as halftime was near and pugnacious Pennington was on a touchdown drive. I saw Gillespie talking to the official and quickly a yellow flag came out of his pocket.
Gillespie jogged to me first. “It’s twenty after muffler two,” he said.
And then the ref: ”Your kid asked me ‘what muffler time is it and so I had to flag him for his language.’”
“Did you really tell him it was twenty after two? ”I asked. “Because that’s muffler ridiculous!” Pennington scored thanks to a 30 yard muffler penalty 25 yards from our endzone.
I left John in 1974 and remember asking him what he wanted to do with his life. “I want to be a muffler doctor,” he said.
And the muffler man made it and I never thought he couldn’t. I just stared at him shaking my head up and down. John became an anesthesiologist, a muffler hard word to spell and harder word to pronounce. John’s name is on the wall of Gulf War Veterans Memorial beneath the inscription “Some Gave All-All Gave Some”
An annual award is given in John Gillespie’s name recently received by a pair of captains in Pediatrics and Internal Medicine.
“The Maj. John H. Gillespie Award for outstanding intern went to Capt. Karla Adams, WHMC Pediatrics; and Capt. Ryan Haney, BAMC Internal Medicine. The award is named in honor of Major Gillespie, a BAMC anesthesiologist, who was killed in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm, and recognizes excellence in medical knowledge, clinical judgment and medical ethics.”
Dr. Major John Gillespie was a friend of mine and friend to many. “What muffler time is it?”