THEN & NOW: The Phone Rings. ‘Mike, Is That You?’ 

The man replied, “Where did you serve?”

Mike told him: “The Oasis.”

There was a pause, and the man asked, “Mike, is that you?”

It was indeed John Lunsford, Mike’s old brother-in-arms. “His was the very first number on the list, so I guess it was meant to be,” Mike said.

John was flabbergasted. “Somebody you hadn’t seen in 40 years and you hear their voice and they identify themselves, you know, it was quite a deal,” he told AARP Veteran Report. “Immediately, as we’re talking, we go down memory lane and we’re thinking about what we did together. We were together not even an entire year.”

Fortuitously, John and Sandy had a trip to Montana in the works and took a day to drive and visit Mike and Jeniel. After more than 50 years apart, John and Mike’s friendship picked up where they’d left off.

Mike Lowry receives his Silver Star while in service. John Lunsford, on his right, would receive a Bronze Star.

Courtesy Wish of a Lifetime

“It was just like we’ve never been apart,” John said. “We had a lot of history to remember, but we were the same kind of same people. It was a unique thing. In 50 years, we had done different things, but his personality seemed the same, he was the same good guy.”

Mike had never forgotten what John did for him back in 1969. “We had wounded that I went to get, and I gave John my weapon and told him to cover me while I did that,” he recalled. “And he did it. There’s a lot of people that maybe wouldn’t have put their life in that much jeopardy.”

The Silver Star citation records Mike’s actions: “Unhesitatingly, he moved through the impacting rounds and small arms fire to his position on the perimeter, where he began to direct a deadly hail of fire on the enemy.” When a grenade wounded two men beside him, Mike braved enemy fire to carry one to safety, then ran back to tend to the other and continue fighting back.

After their day together and over subsequent phone calls, John asked Mike and Jeniel to visit him and Sandy in Virginia so they could visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial together. 

“I had been there on various May 11ths, which is easier to do if you live 200 miles away,” John said. Mike had never been to the wall.

“I think about all that time that those four people have lost because of that night. And there are 58,000 other people on that wall. When you pin it down to somebody you knew and they are gone and you’re still here, it is emotional.

“When we all went to bed on May 10, those four guys were alive. Soon after 2 o’clock in the morning on May 11, they weren’t.”

In May this year, the AARP-affiliated charity Wish of a Lifetime flew Mike and Jeniel to Virginia, so they could reconnect with John and Sandy and travel to Washington to visit the Vietnam wall together. 

“It gets your attention,” Mike said of his first visit to the wall. “A lot of times, we try to suppress memories of Vietnam and things like that, but this was a good memory. It’s a touching, humbling experience.”

John said, “The difference for me was that I was there with Mike, and we had been there with Beale, Barlow, Bell and Bumgarner over 50 years ago.”

Mike reflected on being reunited with John after almost 54 years. “He’s special,” he said. “We kind of share our lives. It’s like we’ve been lifelong friends.”

AARP’s Wish of a Lifetime actively encourages veterans and their families to apply for a wish. 

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