Melvin Reed Jr. may have been quiet, keeping to himself and not saying much.
The loner, the gym-rat...all these things have been said about Melvin by his friends and family.
But he still left an impression. He was a hero.
“Melvin Reed Jr. was a young man with a bright future,” said Ralph Anderson, a brother-in-arms who served alongside Reed in the Vietnam War. “Melvin was my friend because he was a real swell guy.”
Melvin was born on Feb. 11, 1947 to Rev. Melvin and Gertrude Reed in Louise.
Melvin grew up in a tight-knit community where next-door neighbors were treated like family.
“We may have been neighbors, but we were also friends,” said Wendell Harrell. “We played together every day, mostly sports. He taught me a lot about baseball. He was an excellent athlete, a natural.”
Wendell Reed, Melvin’s brother, said he enjoyed playing sports and staying physically fit.
“He was a gym-rat,” Wendell Reed said, with a laugh. “He hung out by himself a lot, but he was always in the back yard lifting weights.”
When Melvin wasn’t at the gym or building muscles, he was usually found in his bedroom playing guitar.
“He was different because he liked to keep to himself,” Wendell Harrell said. “He was quiet, but he had a good personality.”
After high school, Melvin attended college. But he would soon leave school to return home.
“That is when they got him,” Wendell Reed said, referring to the draft. “If you had all your fingers and toes, they got you.”
Melvin was drafted. Shortly afterwards, he moved to his sister’s house in California where he reported for duty.
“We had another brother just coming back from over there,” Wendell Reed said. “I think they even ran into each other somewhere.”
The idea of going to Vietnam was not a topic of discussion among the Reed brothers.
“We never talked about him going over there,” Wendell Reed said. “He went through basic training, came home and stayed about a week or two. Then he left. I never saw him again.”
While in Vietnam, he developed a strong friendship with Anderson. As the world dealt with the Vietnam War, social injustice and civil uncertainty, Melvin and Anderson became like brothers....Melvin, a black kid from the Deep South, and Anderson, a white kid from Florida.
“We told jokes to each other and talked about getting married when we got back to the world,” Anderson said. “We called each other bad names, but it was all in fun and no feelings were hurt.”
Wendell Harrell was also in the armed forces. He headed over to Korea while Melvin was shipped to Vietnam on Sept. 4, 1968.
“I read the Stars and Stripes every day,” Harrell said. “I read it every day, hoping to never see his name there. While I was in Korea, I ended up reading his name...shortly after he got killed.”
Melvin was killed on January 1, 1969 when the tank he was driving hit a land mine. He was 21 years old, killed only four months after he arrived at Quang Ngai in South Vietnam.
“He was killed instantly,” Anderson said. “At that point, I lost a dear friend.”
Melvin had a family and a fiancée waiting on his return.
“All we knew was that he got blown up in a tank,” Wendell Reed said, looking down. “We didn’t try to dig any deeper than that.”
The Reed family was heartbroken over their loss.
“It was devastating,” Wendell Reed added. “The United States didn’t gain anything from that war. It was senseless to me. That war hurt a lot of families.”
Melvin now has a street in Louise named in his honor. And his memory is forever etched in the lives of the people he touched in his short life.
“Melvin has been in my thoughts these last years,” Anderson said. “I will never forget him as long as I live. May God walk with him always.”
