Back From Iraq, It's Time To Play Ball
When Doug LeVien Sr., an executive officer in the Marine Corps, returned to Brooklyn from Vietnam, there weren't any festivities to welcome him home.
In fact, he didn't talk about the war for years.
When his 34-year-old son, Doug LeVien Jr., came back from a year-long assignment in Iraq, he felt it was time to celebrate a safe return. It is, after all, a different era.
Mr. LeVien was in the stands at KeySpan Park yesterday, proudly watching his son and other alumni of Xavier High School play a scrimmage baseball game in the name of Doug Jr.'s homecoming. They played on the home field of the Brooklyn Cyclones in Coney Island, rented out for the game.
"It's a fabulous ballgame," Mr. LeVien said. "When I came back from Vietnam, nobody talked about it. I landed at Newark Airport in my uniform at 2:30 a.m. The cab driver told me it was $75 flat fare to Brooklyn and I asked him if that was to buy the car."
His son, a decorated major in the U.S Army and a former La Salle University star center fielder, spoke of how appreciative soldiers in Iraq are of American support. "There's not a day that goes by that we don't know why we're in the military," Mr. LeVien said.
While growing up in Bensonhurst, Mr. LeVien said he had two loves — baseball and his country. After graduating from college, he joined the military and was later handpicked for the Army War College at Fort Leavinworth, Kan.
A logistics expert, Mr. LeVien won the Bronze Star for his innovative work in resupplying front line battalions by air rather than over dangerous Iraqi roads.
The game pitted Xavier alums against this year's varsity squad. With the field-level stands packed with friends and family, the veterans avoided embarrassment by mustering up enough will to beat the youngsters by a score of 7–4. Mr. LeVien went three for five, with two singles, a double, and an RBI.
His mother, Barbara, said her son forked up more than $5,000 to put on the game. When asked about the financing of the event, Mr. LeVien said, "You can't put a price tag on a great day like this. I didn't want a stuffy homecoming party at a bar or a restaurant. It's so much better to put one over the fence or go out and shag some fly balls."
