A Memorial Day Story ..

[AlanC]

I really needed to write this and since today used to be Memorial Day it seemed somehow appropriate. I apologize if someone thinks this is the wrong place. But it did seem fitting for today.

I just returned from a memorial service in honor of a friend who died on the 9th day of May from bone cancer and lymphoma. His name is Michael Frank Sinclair and I thought it would also be important for anyone reading this to know that as well. Mike was just diagnosed with this in March of this year and I know initially it hit him hard. But, as you will see, he met this challenge as he has every other challenge in his life. He met it with faith, dignity, courage and a profound sense of humility.

Mike was ultimately faced with a choice of trying severe chemo therapy that had far more downside than it did chance of success or accepting this final toss of fate. He chose to spend as much of the time he had left in close personal contact with his family and friends. He chose to say good bye, not with tears, though there were those, but with joy and consolation to those he would be leaving behind.

But that is not the story of this man. He was an accomplished athlete, and student. He graduated college and entered the Army through the ROTC plan. This sent him to Viet Nam as an officer in the Airborne Rangers. During his first tour, he was critically wounded and evacuated. He eventually recovered but his wounds were such that he would not have to return to Nam. Instead of accepting that though, he persevered in volunteering to serve a second tour and was finally given permission. But it was during his third tour, as a Captain now, that a land mine took both of his legs, his left eye and his left thumb.

He spent the next two years in rehabilitation at Walter Reed Hospital, healing and then learning to walk on two artificial legs. Subsequent to his release from the hospital and the Army, he went back to school and got a Masters degree in Finance, met the love of his life and married her, had four children and now five grand children and managed a successful career with IBM as a financial analyst. He also became an accomplished competitive skeet shooter and was prominent in the establishment of Cowboy Action Shooting as a sport in southern Arizona.

As I said, he had faith, dignity, courage and a profound sense of humility. He was a friend if you had known him for 30 years or 30 minutes.

One of the last things he said a week before he died was this….

“I have learned that in life pain is inevitable, but being miserable is only an option.”

He also said that he is most proud of the fact that through his 3 tours in Nam, he never lost anyone under his command. He had his share of men wounded, but none of them were killed. He was deeply proud of that.

He was a hell of a man, my friend, and I am a better man for having known him. Now you know of him too.

[Trish]

I'm sorry for your loss. Your friend sounds like a man I would have enjoyed knowing.

[AlanC]

Thanks Trish and I'm not aware of anyone who didn't. ;)

[cronic]

Thanks for telling us about him..

I'm sorry you lost your friend Alan - from who you describe here..I too like yourself would truly feel like a better person just from knowing him also.

He sounds like the type of person that could easily inspire others with just his attitude alone.

God Bless and peace

[Muser]

I'm real sorry to hear about your friend, Alan. :( Mike sounds like a helluva great guy - the world doesn't have enough of them as it is, and it's always a terrible shame when they're unfairly taken away. I can't imagine the difficult time you're going through...I hope you have people you can lean on until the sun comes out again.

We'll do our best here to keep your spirits up. We could get pics of pres in sexy lingerie and stiletto heels...or maybe in his disco threads - I'm sure he wouldn't mind a bit, seeing how it's for a good cause and all. Not to worry, you just leave the details to me. Stay chill until then.

[Alonzo]

Wow, I'm sorry to hear. It sounds like he really changed the lives of those around him for the better.

[AlanC]

Zo, yes I would say that is accurate. Like I said, he was a hell of a man.

Cronic, thanks, but I am fine. Mike's faith allowed him a tremendous peace about his condition. It was him comforting those around him rather than the other way around.

I believe he is in a better place, and for the first time in a long time, whole. I don't know if they will have shooting sports in heaven, but if they do, Mike will soon be running them.

[tecoyah]

If he reads what you have written, he will smile in knowing hundreds now respect a man they never met...all from your words.

Well Done.

[AlanC]

If he reads what you have written, he will smile in knowing hundreds now respect a man they never met...all from your words.

Well Done.


Thanks, that was part of the intent of sharing the story. There are people in this world worthy of respect and immitation. Many of them actually and most of them slide through life unknown to the world at large.

[lily]

“I have learned that in life pain is inevitable, but being miserable is only an option.”

What a wonderful philosophy.

[AlanC]

Thanks Lily and I couldn't agree more. Its why I added it to my signature line. Its easy to forget that and let life overwhelm us sometimes.

[Pookie]

Thanks Lily and I couldn't agree more. Its why I added it to my signature line. Its easy to forget that and let life overwhelm us sometimes.
Hmmm. Trying this thru vtunnel like Zo said to. Copy and paste works just fine.

For copying and pasting a link, lessee:

https://www.vtunnel.com/index.php/1010110A/c15b20ad8ec55b74f191ec22288e79814a39257b329fdc2ca0 5b2be33cc404ca5af5b83cd03f25e8e0fe365517ddd3dcf1df f08816989#post188691

Hmm. It works.

Purrs,
Pookie

[AlanC]

If anyone is interested, they did a nice story about Mike in the Arizona Star today that is probably a lot more complete than what I wrote.

If you want to read the article it is here. (http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/fromcomments/242508.php)


Okay, I just checked that link and you have to register for the paper's site. So to make it simple, I will copy the article here.

Published: 06.06.2008

'Dead Eye' Sinclair a crack shot, devotee of Old West traditions
By Kimberly Matas
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Shooting club details
For information on the shooting club Michael "Ole Dead Eye" Sinclair helped start and an international club, check out these Web sites:
• Los Vaqueros: Arizona Historical Shootist Association (AHSA): www.losvaqueros.org
• Single Action Shooting Society (SASS): www.sassnet.com

Michael "Ole Dead Eye" Sinclair rode with a wild and woolly gang.
Buckshot Chavez, Crusty Gil, the Wild Irishman, Blackjack Fletcher, Mean Rayleen, Dirty Bob, Bison Bert, Lottie Shots, Turquoise Jake and others. One or two weekends a month they met up in the dusty rural towns of the West and Southwest to compare firearms and test their marksmanship in timed shooting competitions. Sometimes a bad guy would pop up behind the saloon. Other times the cowboys — and cowgirls — found themselves belly-down in the dirt, aiming at targets from beneath wooden horses. The ammo was live, the rule was safety first, and it was all in good fun as part of Los Vaqueros — Arizona Historical Shootists Association, a Tucson-based organization that Sinclair and a handful of others started in 1984.

On May 9 Ole Dead Eye went "home to ride on God's range," as the Los Vaqueros' Web site puts it, after battling cancer. He was 63.
Sinclair was born into a military family and his father was in the Air Force. After he graduated from high school in Germany, Sinclair attended the University of Dayton, earning a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. "The degree wasn't important. The (Army) ROTC was," said his wife of 35 years, Gail Sinclair. Sinclair was intent on joining the military. Immediately after graduation in 1967, he was sent to Fort Campbell in Kentucky for Army Ranger and Airborne School. By August 1968, 1st Lt. Sinclair was in Vietnam as part of the 9th Infantry Division. He made more than 25 combat jumps, received five Bronze Stars for valor and heroism, a Silver Star for gallantry in action and two Purple Hearts.

Sinclair was injured in early 1969 — he lost an artery in a leg — and spent six months at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Sinclair, by then a captain, asked to be sent back for a second tour, from which he returned unscathed.
Weeks into his third tour, though, Sinclair was severely wounded. On his 27th birthday, he and his men were attempting to take a hill strewn with land mines. Though an airstrike had been called in earlier to detonate the land mines, it was unsuccessful, Gail Sinclair said.
"Up the mountain, he started losing men left and right because of the land mines," she said. By the time troops reached the top of the hill, Sinclair had lost 30 or so men.

While regrouping, he took off his backpack and set it on the ground. When he picked it up, a pressure release was triggered, and a land mine exploded at his feet. His abdomen was protected by the backpack he was holding, but his limbs were ravaged.
At a field hospital, doctors amputated Sinclair's legs and a thumb. He also lost an eye. His arms were shredded, and doctors considered amputating them, too, but didn't want to leave the Army Ranger without any mobility. They patched his arms the best they could and shipped him to a hospital.

Sinclair spent two years at Walter Reed. It was at the hospital that he met his wife, an Army physical therapist.
"The one good thing about coming back from Vietnam injured," Gail Sinclair said, "you never thought you were as bad off as the guy in the bed next to you." Being surrounded by fellow soldiers and military personnel provided wounded soldiers with psychological support as well.

Despite the medical problems, Sinclair was as committed as ever to military service. "He tried to stay in the Army. He was a captain. At that time they were trying to keep captains who were combat-ready and he wasn't," his wife said. After he was medically retired, Sinclair accompanied his spouse to her posts overseas and in the United States.

The couple had four children and when Gail retired, Sinclair got a job in California as a financial analyst for IBM. He was transferred to Tucson in 1979. In the early 1980s, Sinclair learned about a competitive cowboy shooting event in California and he entered.
The authenticity of the sport appealed to him. Participants had to wear the kind of garb donned in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They had to use vintage or antique replicas of rifles, shotguns and pistols, and they had to adopt a shooting alias.

Sinclair chose "Ole Dead Eye" because of his injury and because he was a crack shot, a deadeye on rifle. He also shot trap, skeet and sporting clays. "He liked any kind of sport where he could shoot," his wife said. Sinclair was extremely athletic and competitive all his life, but his war wounds made it impossible to participate in the more physical sports he liked. Sinclair and a handful of others started Los Vaqueros in 1984, holding monthly matches in sandy washes, with the permission of the Forest Service. Odis "T.A. Chance" Flowers joined the group in 1993 and became fast friends with Sinclair.

"He had a great sense of humor," said Flowers, who didn't think twice when Sinclair made a special request of the silversmith. Periodically, when changes occurred in his eye socket, Sinclair was fitted with a new prosthetic eye. He asked Flowers to affix one of his old orbs into a sterling concho and make it into a scarf slide he could wear to competitions.

"You gotta know Mike. It didn't bother me a bit. The first thing I said to him was, 'Are you sure you have another one?' " Flowers said.
Sinclair also had prosthetic eyes attached to his pocket watch fob and embedded in the handle of one of his pistols.

Tom "Buckeye Pete" Colaric met Sinclair in the mid-'80s when they worked at IBM. Colaric joined Los Vaqueros and learned his co-worker was an excellent shot. "Mike, like many of us … grew up with Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Hopalong Cassidy, Saturday matinees; and being a cowboy was something many of us dreamed of being," Colaric said. "It was a way of life and ideas that we all strive for — fair, firm, do what's right even though somebody may not be watching. The fairness in him, making sure everybody had an equal shake, that was very much a part of Mike."

When he was diagnosed with cancer — likely caused, said his wife, by a hepatitis-infected blood transfusion he received after his first injury, combined with the Agent Orange sprayed in Vietnam — Sinclair showed true grit, opting against chemotherapy. Chances for recovery were limited, and the treatment was debilitating.

A true cowboy at heart, Ole Dead Eye chose to enjoy life instead of trying to out-ride death.