Larry Patterson was a friend of mine. But I was a tad jealous of him, too.

I’d have killed to be like him – cool, charming and self-assured. He was like that old Brylcream commercial. All the girls wanted to run their fingers through his hair, particularly the hotties in the Gridley High (California) classes of 1966 and 1967.

I envied his athletic ability. I was a better baseball player. But he was the football team’s quarterback and the basketball team’s point guard. Sandy-haired and blue-eyed, No. 11 wasn’t that big – maybe 5-foot-10 and 175 pounds. But he could spin a pass into the outstretched arms of a receiver running flat out 30 yards away. Or he could can a jump shot from the free throw line with time running down. He also played second base. I was the shortstop. Sometimes for kicks, I’d throw the ball late to second on a double play attempt to see if he could avoid the opposing runner barreling down on him from first base. He did – usually.

Larry had everything going for him – until he was killed in Vietnam Aug. 31, 1968. I read about his death in the weekly Gridley Herald. Shocked, I printed under his graduation photo in my yearbook: “Killed Sat. Aug. 31 in Vietnam – Mortar Shell Hit His Truck in Enemy Attack on Convoy.” Larry was 19 when he died, a private first class in the U.S. Army, 15 months out of high school.

Earlier that summer, my small Sacramento Valley hometown of Gridley was staggered when it lost its first local boy in action. Marine Lance Cpl. Danny Prock, 20, was shot in the head by a sniper with about a week to go on his one-year tour of duty. Later, I and a group of Danny’s friends visited his grave on impulse in the middle of the night. Most of us wondered if we were going to die in Vietnam, too.

On Monday, I found Danny’s name first on the Traveling Wall Vietnam Memorial on the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation – on Panel 59W, line 12: “Daniel L. Prock.” Immortalized by artist Maya Lin with 58,000 others, Danny’s name was sandwiched between those of Lawrence E. Porter, 19, of Dalton, Ohio, and Larry B. Reed, 18, of Lake Charles, Louisiana. All three died 36 years ago on June 6.

I was working at King’s East Gridley Market at the time, debating whether to join the Air Force or wait to be drafted. I took the Air Force entrance test to keep my options open. Ultimately, I enrolled at a new junior college a few days after Larry was killed, figuring I’d start college, so I would have a head start when I returned from the war. Straight A’s that first semester led to a student deferment. The student deferment led to irresponsible student activism against the war, about which I’m still ambivalent, and to a lottery number – No. 195. The number was high enough to get me out of Vietnam. One of my roommates was No. 1. But he didn’t go either. Mental.

Rubbing my fingers over Danny’s name Monday, I thought about our different fates. Why him? Why not me?

Nearby, a stout, white-haired man put his hand over his face as he sank to one knee, overcome. I was fighting my emotions, too. To recognize a name among so many stirred feelings I’d suppressed for a long time. He did go. He did die. Vietnam really happened. After a minute, the 60-something rose painfully and saluted the special name on the slab. Then, he slowly moved away supported by his wife.

On the other side, two women discussed their special name on the black aluminum slab in front of them.

“Do you ever wonder what he would be doing if he hadn’t gone into battle?” asked one.

But for fate, I thought, he might have earned a journalism degree, hooked on with a daily newspaper in his college town, married a local girl, raised two kids and enjoyed a career that led him decades later to a job as a columnist and an editorial writer in the Pacific Northwest.

I moved on to Larry’s slab while my wife left in search of cousin Jerry Janeway’s name on the other side of the L-shaped monument.

At the center of the memorial are the words: “The price of freedom is written on the wall.” I found Larry’s name between two others who’d paid the price of freedom – on Section 45W, Line 16 – John Panak Jr., 28, of Coal City, Pa., and Ernest E. Sanville, 24, of N. Hinsdale, N.H.

There was no room to mention that Larry was our senior class president. Or that he once won the Gridley High Coaches Award for basketball. Or that he escorted Princess Sheree Hinaman to the Twirp Dance during their junior year. Or that he sometimes would flip me off when I threw the ball to him late on a double play. The inscription simply said: “Larry H. Patterson” – H for Hart.

One name among so many others. All heroes.

Long ago, Larry Patterson made air bubbles dance on his tongue and other boys wish they were him. Nevermore.