July 12, 1944 - September 21, 1981
My Shield, My Big Brother
Guy was an Adult Child of Family Violence.
Of the two of us, he bore the brunt of the
emotional and physical battering meted out
by our father. For over 20 years, we were
both witness to the harsh battering of our mother.
In addition, nothing Guy could ever do
- or be - was good enough for our father.
As a child and teen, Guy was constantly
rejected, neglected and unjustly punished.
During our childhood years, he actively
tried to spare me, his little sister,
from my father�s wrath; I think he often
took the heat for both of us. By age 16,
in trying to protect and defend our mother,
he and my father began a series of hateful,
frightening fist fights. Guy was sent to live
with relatives in Indiana before
one or both were killed.
Guy joined the Army in the mid-1960s and rose
to the rank of Captain. He volunteered for
duty in Viet Nam. One day in 1968, while
leading his men in a battle, he was shot in
the side of the head. He was removed from
the field and bandaged. Unable to watch his
men under fire, he went back out and held off
the enemy allowing many of his men to get to
safe ground. Unfortunately, a mortar then
exploded, killing several of his men and
wounding Guy severely. For his heroism and
bravery, Guy was awarded the Silver Star.
He also spent the entire next year in a full
body cast while his teenage sister
cleaned his open wounds.
After the Viet Nam war, Guy was really never
the same, emotionally or physically.
But in the late 1970�s he did, however, finally
find himself and his talent - Photography.
Before he died, Guy traveled the United States
taking beautiful pictures from Florida to
Barrow, Alaska. He literally absorbed the country
he had fought for, capturing its beauty, humor,
architecture, regional cultures, and the
people he met along the way. Guy�s photographic
fascination with death and destruction was
forged in a home called hell, as was his
willingness to lay his life on the line for
those he cared about. His work also captured
the quintessential isolation and alienation
of the Adult Child of Family Violence.
Though I am still deeply, deeply saddened
by Guy�s premature death in 1981 at age 39
from AIDS, he has left me a wonderful legacy:
~this country~
Through Guy�s Eyes.
