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Woman never met father, who died in Vietnam War
By Jim Carney
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Sunday, May 25, 2008
STOW: Several months ago, Tina Jo Briggs had a dream about the father she never knew.
It came to her about a year after her grandfather died.
In it, her grandfather was sitting in a room, smiling along with his son — her father — also smiling, and still only 21 years old.
She accepted the dream as a magical visit of the two men.
''They were trying to reach me,'' she said.
This Memorial Day, Briggs will again wonder, as she does most days, about her father, Air Force Sgt. Gary V. Clark, who was killed in Vietnam on Dec. 17, 1969, days before she was born.
She has a scrapbook about him that
her mother put together years ago.
Inside are black and white photos of her dad, who grew up in Texas.
There is an 8-by-10 photo of him upon entering the Air Force after he graduated from high school in 1966.
There is also his birth certificate and a letter the Air Force sent her mother, Jo Ann, explaining that her dad died in a noncombat crash of a C-123 upon landing in Vietnam.
Briggs' mother, Jo Ann Willey, who lived in Noble County at the time, met her husband-to-be at a Wright Patterson Air Force Base dance.
''She saw him across the room,'' Briggs said, recalling a familiar family story, taking note that ''my mom thought he was arrogant at first.''
But soon the two fell in love.
He ''was a down to earth guy,'' who liked motorcycles.
''He liked to have fun . . . He didn't take life too seriously,'' she said.
Gary Clark turned 21 in April 1969 and married later that year on Aug. 3.
He arrived in Vietnam Oct. 24, 1969, and Tina Jo Clark was born Dec. 29, 1969 — 12 days after her father was killed.
In the scrapbook is a photo of her mother — who at age 20 looked much like Briggs today — , holding her 5-months-old daughter.
''It is sad,'' Briggs said reflecting on her father's death.
Briggs has the flag that covered her father's casket and one of the Air Force shirts he wore with his name engraved above the pocket.
In her wallet, she carries a photograph of him in his Air Force uniform.
There are no home movies of him and she has never heard a recording of his voice.
Her mother has all the letters she wrote him and he wrote to her, but she has never seen them.
Someday, Briggs said, she will read them.
In 1974, when she was only 5, her mother met Richard Stobbs, an Army veteran. The two later married and Briggs spent much of her youth in St. Clairsville.
Stobbs, a former Belmont County sheriff, last year became chairman of the Gold Star Family Committee that lobbied for passage of a Gold Star Family plate bill allowing special license plates to be issued to families who had lost loved ones in a combat zone.
The bill recently became law.
Today, Briggs' mother, Jo Ann, and stepfather, who now live in Westerville, will deliver a ceremonial plate to Briggs, who ultimately plans to purchase the new Gold Star plates in memory of her father for her car.
Briggs, who works in the Canton office of the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation, said she and her husband, Rick, will not attend Memorial Day ceremonies Monday.
''It's too hard. . . . Too emotional for me,'' she said.
Instead, she and her husband will spend the day with their two daughters.
She said she has tried to let her children know how lucky they are to have their entire family together.
She has always wondered, though, how would life have been different if her father had lived.
''I would have loved to have known him,'' she said.
Yet in some ways, she said, it may have been easier to deal with since she never knew him.
The closest thing she has are the stories from family members who knew and loved him.
But she also has that recent dream.
It was so vivid, she said, she woke her husband to tell him.
''It was so real,'' she said.
Jim Carney can be reached at 330-996-3576 or jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com.
STOW: Several months ago, Tina Jo Briggs had a dream about the father she never knew.
Get the full article here.
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