July 13, 2021
I loved Ed Mayr, a loyal comrade and caring friend. His legal brilliance and teaching skills are being well documented, so I would like to speak to his sense of humor and his humanism. He was rich in both attributes. He loved telling self-deprecating comic stories wherein he was the butt of the joke. He had a pervading sense of the absurd, and the craziness of the public defense function which provided constant fodder for his hilarious insights. We had many a Friday night and Monday morning laugh about life in the legal trenches. His targets were ourselves, the lawyers and the judges, but never the clients. I think he really loved the job.
Being an avid consumer military history (but too chicken to actually participate in military history), I often tried to pump Ed about his experiences and insights. Like most veterans of combat, Ed wasn't talking. I had no idea he had been wounded or received a Bronze Star for valor. The only three things I ever got out of him were: "I'm not for the Marxist-Leninists, I'm for the dirt farmer."; then, a very brief reflection on handling some prisoners, whose lives he saved, by talking down the soldiers that wanted to shoot them, and, finally, the only story of any length he ever told me about Vietnam. Surrounded and besieged at Khe Sanh, the Marines were on short water rations in a sweltering environment. All supplies came in by air. Anti-aircraft fire was very intense. Cargo planes touched down under fire and kept rolling for takeoff as supplies were shoved out the bays. Often, they didn't try to land at all, throwing the stuff off the plane while flying low. On one such occasion, multiple crates of oranges rained down on his position from the sky, bursting on impact, leaving thousands of oranges bouncing and rolling all over the place. Ed laughed all the way narrating the combat slapstick that ensued as the thirsty Marines chased down those oranges. Ed was for the little guy farmer, compassionate to his fellow human beings, the enemy, and always found something to laugh about no matter how dire the circumstances. I just loved the guy.
Being an avid consumer military history (but too chicken to actually participate in military history), I often tried to pump Ed about his experiences and insights. Like most veterans of combat, Ed wasn't talking. I had no idea he had been wounded or received a Bronze Star for valor. The only three things I ever got out of him were: "I'm not for the Marxist-Leninists, I'm for the dirt farmer."; then, a very brief reflection on handling some prisoners, whose lives he saved, by talking down the soldiers that wanted to shoot them, and, finally, the only story of any length he ever told me about Vietnam. Surrounded and besieged at Khe Sanh, the Marines were on short water rations in a sweltering environment. All supplies came in by air. Anti-aircraft fire was very intense. Cargo planes touched down under fire and kept rolling for takeoff as supplies were shoved out the bays. Often, they didn't try to land at all, throwing the stuff off the plane while flying low. On one such occasion, multiple crates of oranges rained down on his position from the sky, bursting on impact, leaving thousands of oranges bouncing and rolling all over the place. Ed laughed all the way narrating the combat slapstick that ensued as the thirsty Marines chased down those oranges. Ed was for the little guy farmer, compassionate to his fellow human beings, the enemy, and always found something to laugh about no matter how dire the circumstances. I just loved the guy.