Searching for Whit

If I hadn’t been eating raw seafood and picked up Hepatitis, I never would have met Whit.
I was on the sixth floor of the Naval Hospital in Naples Italy. The entire
Floor was filled with an ever-changing number of young servicemen with Hepatitis.

As luck would have it Whit was assigned a bed next to mine.. It was a Godsend for me.
We were alike in so many ways. We had the same interest and we had both immersed ourselves in the Italian culture. We both had Italian girlfriends that we planned to marry.
I was released from the hospital a few weeks later, Whit was released a short time after that. I had a few more months in Naples before I was transferring to a ship home ported in San Diego. Whit was in the Coast Guard stationed on the island of Sardinia.
We corresponded for a while, but with the transfers.. We lost touch. That was 1968.
I was discharged in 1969. Went back Italy and got married. We moved back to Texas.
I thought about Whit from time to time, but all I knew was his Nick Name "Whit”, his last name and that he was from Kentucky. We were so busy starting our new lives. Going to school, working, moving several times. I only had his Coast Guard address and tried sending several letters. They all were returned. I tried contacting the Coast Guard, but got no help.
Years past and from time to time I would wonder what happened to Whit. This was still before the Internet and long distance calling was still expensive. My curiosity got the best of me and so I started to call Kentucky information on the weekends when it was less expensive. I would get a long distance operator and tell her what I was doing and she would give me the numbers of 5 or 6 people in Kentucky with the same last name. I did this on and off for at least a year with no positive results. Then, one Saturday, I called another number and a girl answered. I explained who I was looking for and she said she married her husband who had that name. He was not there, but she thought she remembered his saying one time that he had a cousin who was in the Coast Guard in Italy. She told me that if I could call back in a few days, she would have found out for sure.
I waited till the next weekend and called. She gave the number of a person she thought might know my friend.
A women answered the phone. I introduced myself and explained who I was looking for.
I heard a gasp and then silence. After a few moments she said, “Whit was my son”. I asked how he was and where was he. She replied. “ Whit was getting his mail one evening and a drunk driver came by and ran him over… he died instantly” We were both silent for a while and then she asked me to tell her more about how I met Whit. We talked at length and then she asked if I by chance had any photos of Whit. I told her that I might, but would have to do some searching. She also told me that Whit had two children and that after his death, his wife returned to Italy with them.
Later I did find one photo and sent a copy to her. She sent me a card thanking me for thinking of her son and for the photo. . I never talked with her again.
In the card she sent me, she gave me the names of Whit’s Children. I did a search and found the daughter. She answered my email and was happy to hear from someone that had known her father. She owns a villa in Sardinia that she rents to tourist.

©2010