Upon returning home from overseas I learned Tack Trostle died. Our community has lost a warm and gentle heart. And my wife and I have lost a dear friend.
To call Tack a great guy sells him short. He was a hunanitarian. He was someone who you spent time with and then looked forward to a next encouter. To the students he worked with on many occasions at my former school, he was an educator, a mentor and an inspiration.
Tack served two tours of duty in Vietnam and spent the rest of his life battling PTSD. But he tried to channel his struggles to help others. He returned to Vietnam three times with Project Hearts and Minds to distribute medical supplies to clinics in rural villages struggling to minister to Vietnamese children.
He was active in Veterans for Peace and was particularly relentless in campaigning against the School of the Americas. He shared his stories with my students and touched them with his compassion and depth of feeling. He encouraged them to fight injustice and quite a few answered his call.
But he wasn’t just a crusader. His laugh filled a room. He spent many a summer seeking inner peace studying and meditating with monks at a New England Ashram; but when he sliced a tee shot into the woods he could give any sailor a run for his blue-mouthed money. He was a skilled mason who helped two mutual friends construct patios in their back yards; payment was not monetary, but came for him in the form of sitting down after a hard day’s work over a few cold beers and warm conversation. And taco night at the Dispensing Company will never be the same without him.
Last March Tack wrecked his bike and suffered severe head trauma. Seeing such a vibrant intellect and indomitable spirit in a state of such physical helplessness was painful. I can’t imagine what he must have been going through in the past 10 months.
So with his passing his spirit is free. With good fortune, he’s out on the links with Fred Rudisill, the mutual friend who introduced us over 20 years ago and who also left this sphere all too early.
Hit ‘em straight, boys.
