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You Really Would Have Liked Him

By Rena Kopystenski

My husband and best friend, John Kopystenski, passed away in his sleep early Sunday, April 6th, 2008. I am so grateful to VVAW for allowing me to write my own thoughts about John, but this is going to be another side of the VVAW brotherhood; because this has nothing to do with war or a corrupt government. Of course it does have to do with the fact that they killed my husband in Vietnam in 1966 and then the inept and corrupt government finished the job in 2008.

John was a simple man who lived for his family. He wanted only the best for his wife and children but I can't remember him asking anything but the most meager things for himself. He was a very strong man who returned from NAM to become a paramedic and then a fireman in Newark, New Jersey, right at the time of the '69 riots but he braved the danger in order to help people and save lives. John was a humble man who loved football but could also watch movies like, his favorite, The American President, a million times. There was nothing that Johnny Kopy wouldn't do to help out a fellow vet, from opening up our home when someone needed a roof, to giving jobs to those who needed work (even if his business didn't need anymore help). No one came to our home without being fed and encouraged. Over the past 40 years, John and I took in approximately 16 teenagers who were either throwaways or castoffs but we never took a dime from anyone to raise those boys because John's belief was "you can't teach a boy that he's worth anything if you're making a buck off his butt." That was how John lived his life and inspired me to live mine.

Over the years, vets from all over the world came to know my name, Rena Kopy, because of the stand I took and the work I did, but, the reality was always that John was the wind beneath my wings, or as he in his Jersey Polack way would say: "the hydro fan under your ass."

John had been very sick for a very long time and, as tough as I like to think I am, I lived in awe of how much pain he endured 24/7 but kept on keeping on. The last thing that he did before becoming too sick to function was to buy a trailer and have it converted to a concession trailer in order to raise funds to help the guys and girls coming back from Georgie's War. There are a million words that I could write about the man that I was blessed to know and who knew me and loved me so much anyway, but space and time are limited, so all I will say is that, if you knew Johnny Kopy, you were enriched by the friendship and if you never met him, boy,did you miss out. Rest in Peace my husband, my lover, my friend and inspiration, it's so lonely here without you.