Two veteran warriors bond in time of need
January 09,2007
Anne Clark

It’s been more than 30 years since Jim Capers and George Houle first met while stationed at Camp Lejeune.

Capers grew up on a sharecropper’s farm in South Carolina; Houle was the Catholic son of a New Hampshire carpenter.

What the men didn’t know, on the day they met, was that they were born 36 days apart in 1937, and that their lives would continue to follow remarkably similar, and tragic, paths.

Through career successes and personal traumas, the veterans have become as close as any blood brothers.

Today, they make regular visits together to Coastal Carolina Veterans Cemetery, where their loved ones’ headstones lie about 100 feet apart.

But their stories begin in the mid-1950s, when the men each found their way into the Marine Corps: Capers by way of Baltimore, Houle after a few rebellious years out of high school.

They enlisted within a year of each other; took brides on the same day, June 20.

While in Vietnam, each was commissioned as an officer. They were each promoted to the rank of major on the same day in 1976.

By then, they were good friends, holding different positions with Force Troops, which provided heavy artillery and combat support units to Marine divisions.

“I thought, ‘I really like this guy, he’s a decent guy,’” said Capers, impressed that Houle was so involved in the local community. “And the mutual things we share — they defy any rational explanation.”

Their friendship transcended race, even when they were reminded of it by others. They celebrated their promotions together at a private club which, until that night in 1976, had been segregated.

“When you’re in a foxhole and start to bleed, it’s the same color,” Houle said.

Besides their parallel professional arcs, the men realized they had a profound connection: they each had a special needs child.

In the Houle family, that was youngest daughter Janine; Jim and Dorothy Capers had a special needs son named Gary, their only child.

At some point in their careers, the men were faced with a tour in Okinawa, at a time when there wasn’t a lot of resources for families with special needs children, the men said.

Rather than take an assignment in Okinawa, Capers retired as a major in 1978. Houle decided to go for a year, unaccompanied. Their experiences made them very grateful for the women who cared for the families at home.

“We both married extraordinary women,” said Capers, who met his bride in high school.

Houle met his future wife, Theresa, in a Maryland bar. He was grousing to a friend that all he wanted to do was see Baltimore, not meet the lady friends who had come along.

Theresa hopped on the stool next to his and asked, “So what do you have against women?”

Three hours later, as a Polish bar owner played his accordion, Houle realized he would marry her.

They enjoyed decades together, raised four children: Christina, Diana, Mark and Janine.

Then, darkness. Diana Houle was raped and murdered in 1989.

“The trauma of losing a child — only a parent who’s gone through that can appreciate it,” said Capers, who can relate: his only child, Gary, died in his arms after suffering a ruptured appendix in 2003, “the saddest day of my life,” Capers said.

Going through such tragedy prepared Capers to comfort Houle in the early morning hours of Oct. 12, 2006, when Theresa Houle died following a heart attack.

“I was a basket case,” said Houle, who had been with her during those last precious moments. Then he collapsed.

Capers had already made arrangements with the cemetery and with the funeral home; he would be there when Houle broke the news to daughter Janine.

Other friends rallied around Houle too.

“The Marines circled the wagon at a time when I really needed help,” Houle said. “And the guy leading the charge was Jim Capers.”

Capers said all he could do was be there. There’s no game plan, no blueprint, he said, for guiding a friend through grief.

“I just did what an old friend should do, what Marines do,” Capers said. “We take care of our own.”

Ellie