Deja Vu on Heceta beach!!

My day started by an early phone call from my friend Mary Nulty, Mary asked me to meet her at the North Jetty to view some giant squids that had washed up on the beach. As we walked down the beach headed North towards Driftwood Shores we saw and counted many beached squids, they were Humboldt Squids (Dosidicus gigas). They were scattered about forty feet apart, then all of a sudden the number of squids grew to an alarming number. All of a sudden it brought back memories of times past, when I was near a beach in Viet Nam helping collect Marine bodies during Operation Starlight, August 1965. I then told my friend Mary about my thoughts and feelings, little did I know what was to come. We kept waling and photographed some of the remaining squids, we stopped counting at 40. Mary's tears began to flow as we looked up the beach and realized that there were many more dead squids on the beach.

Then we walked up to a covered squid, it was rapped up in a US Marine dungaree shirt from the Viet Nam era, even though it was old and worn, I'm sure it had been placed on the squid purposely. How Ironic I thought, After having my earlier thoughts here is a uniform covered body. I felt as we had covered a comrade. I felt sad and good at the same time… I have come in full circle.

Richard Lewis