Though the fact that Gil Evachevski had promised Kirsten and the Toivo family he’d go looking for some trace of Henry wasn’t widespread knowledge around Spearfish Lake, it wasn’t any big secret, either. Gil had first mentioned it to his fellow veterans as far back as Steve Augsberg’s welcome home, back in ’72, but after Saigon fell in ’75 the chances of it coming off any time soon seemed bleak at the minimum.

Gil kept an eye on the news, though. Although the new government in Vietnam seemed just as brutal and stupid and ideological as a new-born Communist government could be, they didn’t seem quite as insular as those nutcases in North Korea, so Gil figured there might be a chance.

He sent his first visa request in during the summer of 1977, when, from what he could tell on the evening news and in the news magazines, there might be a little thaw in the icy relations. There was no Vietnamese embassy in the U.S., but he filed it with the embassy to the United Nations, and for good measure sent one to the embassy in Ottawa, Canada.

He never got a response back from either one, but that wasn’t surprising. Thereafter, every few months he’d waste the postage to make a visa request again. Once in a while, he’d get a politely worded rejection back, but that wasn’t very often, and he still figured any chance of acceptance wouldn’t come any time soon. Things were still crazy in Southeast Asia, and he wasn’t sure he really wanted to go there that soon, anyway.

So, he was totally surprised to go through his mail at the store one day in late May of ’81, and find among the bills and junk mail a thin letter from the Vietnamese embassy in Ottawa, saying his request for a visa had been approved, but he’d physically have to pick the visa up at the embassy.

Since there was no way he’d been expecting approval, there was no way he’d prepared to go; he didn’t have clothing or gear for the search and didn’t really have the money at the time. It had been years since he’d seriously gone over the documentation he’d collected back in early ’77, and although he had a general knowledge of what it contained he thought he could be a little fuzzy on the particulars.

It came at a bad time, anyway: the store was busy, his receptionist had just quit, he didn’t have a repairman lined up to handle service calls, and besides, his son Garth was getting ready to graduate from high school, and he didn’t want to miss that. On top of that, it was just getting into the monsoon season in Vietnam. Gil had been through that, and knew the wet would make the task just that much tougher.

Still, it had been almost ten years since he’d first told Heikki Toivo he’d be willing to go look for some trace of Henry, and this was the first chance he had. There was no real choice; he’d go as soon as he could get ready.

The first call he made was to Heikki, and the second was to Kirsten, passing along the good news – and to Carrie, of course – then he started in on the other problems.

The money was the biggest issue, but that issue also fell the easiest. Back in ’71, Garth Matson had been ready to fund Gil’s trip to search for Henry, and Gil knew Garth still maintained an interest in the mystery, so Gil picked up the telephone and gave him a call.

“How much do you need?” was Matson’s only question.

“Jeez, I don’t know,” Gil said. “Last time I looked, it was around two grand for the plane ticket, and there’ll be other expenses, and knowing Vietnam, it’ll take some cash to grease the skids here and there. I’d say five at a minimum”

“That might cut it too close,” Garth said. “I’ll cut you a check for ten.”

“That ought to be plenty,” Gil told him. “I’ll return what I don’t use.”

With that worry out of the way, Gil began to work on some of the other issues. The rainy season was going to be an issue, but it was clear that it was going to be easier for Gil to take off in the summer months, so that was going to just have to be the way it was, and it did open a couple doors. Gil’s son, Garth, had worked around the store off and on all the way through high school, and Brandy, who was just finishing up her sophomore year, had done a little too. Gil figured they could at least service customers, and their mother could keep the books straight. That left the problem of service calls, but it turned out Mark Gravengood could help out with that, and Harold Hekkinan offered to help, too.

Mark was a backpacker, and could help Gil out with field gear, and Gil was able to find some clothes. One by one the issues and problems fell into place as Gil picked away at them. Still, counting everything, it was a month between the time he got the letter from the embassy and the time Carrie drove him down to the airport in Camden, gear ready and loaded, to fly to Ottawa.

It all turned out to be a waste.

Gil got to the embassy, and the staff looked at the letter, and said there must have been some mistake – they couldn’t issue a visa based on that – at least, not to an American. He should have been more specific about that. Gil told them he had made clear in his initial letter that he was an American and sought to go to Vietnam to look for the remains of an old comrade, but it didn’t cut any mustard with the flunkies at the embassy.

After several hours of getting the run-around from lower-ranking employees and not able to speak to anyone who could make a decision, Gil finally did get to talk to one official who said they had in fact issued some visa authorizations to a few Americans in recent weeks. Gil probably had been one of them – but there had been some sort of a pissing match diplomatically, and they had been told they couldn’t issue an actual visa now, at least to an American.

That settled it. One thing became clear to Gil – he wasn’t going to Vietnam, at least not this time.

Muttering words like “Goddamn fucking gooks,” under his breath, Gil caught a taxi back to the airport and a flight back to Camden. It had all been a waste of time, a disappointment. It was disappointing to him, and he was sure the news would be just as disappointing to the Toivo family and to Kirsten.

However, Kirsten and Mike took it well – much better than Gil had expected, knowing Kirsten for so long, and Heikki Toivo turned out to be supporting and philosophical, rather than disappointed. “We’re grateful you tried to go,” he told Gil. “It would rest our minds to be sure we knew what happened to Henry, but it’s been so long that we’ve pretty much gotten accustomed to not knowing.’

“Well, maybe someday,” Gil replied. “I’m not giving up yet.”

“Gil, you know we appreciate all you’ve tried to do for us in this,” Heikki told him. “You told us his unit looked for him, and your friends looked for him, and you told us that after this much time, there’s not a lot of hope anything can be found.”

“True,” Gil told him, “But that’s not the point. From what I can tell, his battalion didn’t do a very good job of looking for him, and Dennis and Bob couldn’t do a very thorough job, under the circumstances. They could easily have missed something. Heikki, the thing that bugs me is a lot of people failed Henry, not just Taylor and his squad leader and his platoon leader. The thing I was always taught as an NCO was that we’re responsible for the men under us, not just in charge of them. We have more experience than they do, so we have to watch out for them, teach them some of what we know so when they get to be in charge of people themselves, they’ll know how to look out for their people. But, no, I learned back in 1977 that Taylor failed to do that, the squad leader failed, the platoon leader and platoon sergeant failed, the company commander failed, and so on. The whole system, the Army, and the country failed Henry by putting him out in the field with a bunch of poorly trained people who didn’t know what they were doing, and didn’t care.”

Gil stopped for a moment, shook his head, and went on, “Maybe I failed him a little, too, by holding out to go to Germany instead of back to Vietnam. I could have been out in the field with a unit like that, and maybe I could have made the difference between Henry or some other poor kid getting back or not. That bothers me, and I don’t intend to let Henry be failed again.”

“But Gil,” Heikki protested, “You had your family to worry about, too.”

“Henry had his family, too,” Gil replied. “And he had Kirsten, too. Everybody failed you as much as they failed Henry. I don’t intend to give up now, without at least giving it a fair try. Henry has been failed enough, and I owe enough of a debt of honor from the people who failed him to give it that try. It’s not just for you or Kirsten any more. The chance will come again. Maybe not soon, but someday. And, when it comes, I plan on trying it again.”

“You’ve already done more than you needed to honor Henry,” Heikki said. “But we appreciate it. It’s good to know he’s not forgotten.”