20 Year Search Unites Ex-SF Father-Daughter

[Richard]

Ex-SF father found by daughter he did not know he had 44 years later.

And so it goes...

Richard

20-year Search Brings Father, Daughter Together
ClevelandLive, 26 Feb 2012

The haunting strains of "What'll I Do?" drifted over guests at the recent awards dinner of the Joint Veterans' Commission of Cuyahoga County.

"When I'm alone/ With only dreams of you/ That won't come true/ What'll I do?"

As Andrea Laune sang those words written by Irving Berlin, she gazed over the crowd at Jim Cole, who beamed back as best he could with a face half-paralyzed from a recent cancer operation.

"What'll I do with just a photograph/ To tell my troubles to?"

Both knew it was a song with many meanings for a father who discovered after 44 years that he had a daughter, and a daughter whose 20-year search for her father successfully ended just in time.

And it all happened as a result of this event last year.

The story goes back to 1966 when Jim Cole was a former Army Green Beret, just home from the war in Vietnam. He was trying to make it in the civilian world by attending Baldwin-Wallace College while working at a bank, and an Arby's in North Olmsted where he met an 18-year-old girl.

They dated for a couple of weeks, then he suddenly returned to Vietnam as a Navy construction contractor.

He never said goodbye. He figured it was just a brief fling; two ships passing in the night sort of thing.

But she was pregnant, and mistakenly thought he'd rejoined the Army. Unable to locate him, she gave up her daughter for adoption.

That daughter was Andrea Laune, who grew up in Shaker Heights, graduated from Regina High School and Miami University, then got married and settled down with her husband to raise two children at their current home in Franklin, Tenn.

She knew she was adopted, and always wanted to meet her birth parents. Fortunately, her mother had given the adoption agency permission for her daughter to contact her, and the two met in 1988.

Her mother told her about the soldier named Jimmy Ray Griffin who was Laune's father.

Laune was determined to find him, too.

"I didn't have a close relationship with my [adopted] parents, there was no emotional connection, and I always had a longing for a father and mother," Laune, 44, said during her visit to Cleveland to attend the Joint Veterans' Commission awards dinner.

She didn't know that her father -- who had served in a clandestine Special Forces unit in Vietnam, working with the CIA -- had changed his name after the war to Jim Cole (the name of his mother's second husband).

He got married and he and his wife, Danielle, raised two children.

Cole, now 69, of Berea, said he changed his name because he wanted to avoid being connected to some of the military operations that were classified for more than 30 years, and possible retribution for his role in those missions.

Laune said she and her birth mother eventually drifted apart. "A lot of times these things don't really work out, and that's OK," she said.

She still had a father to find.

She scoured records in Cleveland and Columbus, hired a private investigator, but had no luck in finding him.

After 20 years she had nearly given up hope until early last year when her usual periodic search of the Internet brought up stories in the Parma Sun News and The Plain Dealer about Cole being honored as Veteran of the Year by the Joint Veterans' Commission.

The Parma Sun News story told about his name change, and The Plain Dealer's use of a photo of Cole when he was in the service clinched it. When Laune compared that photo to her high school graduation picture, "We looked like twins, almost," she said.

"I knew immediately. I knew it. I was jumping up and down yelling 'I found my birth-father! I found my birth-father!' "

She sent him a letter containing photos of herself and mother. "I knew he could reject and deny me, but I was trusting that God had a plan," she said. "So I prayed and prayed and prayed."

Cole said that when he opened the letter, "I did what Green Berets never do -- I put my head down on my desk and cried my heart out."

He called his ex-wife. "She said, 'Are you ready to accept her and love her?' " Cole recalled. "I said absolutely."

Cole said that after breaking the news to his children and his sister, they advised caution, telling him to get a DNA paternity test.

But Cole had recognized the photo of Laune's mother. And photos of him and Laune, both at a younger age, clinched it for him, too. "There was never a doubt in my mind when I saw both those pictures," he said.

"Never a doubt, but regrets," he added. "If only I had known, things could've been different. She wouldn't have had the difficult childhood that she had. She could've lived in a loving home, with a father who loved her."

He called Laune and told her that he was her father.

"Are you coming to see me?" she asked.

"I'm on my way," he answered.

He visited on Mother's Day weekend, "but it was Father's Day for me," Laune said.

"We embraced, I cried, then we just sat together and talked for hours," she recalled. "To look into his face, I could see the love in his eyes. It was amazing."

Cole remembered, "I'd never seen anything more beautiful in my life. The picture was one thing. Actually seeing her, truly was something special."

In the following months they got to know each other. She came to Cleveland and they toured all the places of her youth. They visited Mexico, and Fort Bragg, N.C. where he had trained as a Green Beret.

They discovered similarities. Both liked handwritten notes. Neither enjoyed watching TV. They were deeply religious, and their music tastes ran to the old standards of the '40s and '50s.

But there was something he had to tell her. He'd been diagnosed with a malignant cancer tumor, and was headed to the Mayo Clinic for surgery.

While there, the amateur singer sent him a song that she'd sang and recorded with the help of her husband, Tom, a recording engineer and producer.

The song was "What'll I Do?"

Cole said that since the operation he has refused any addition chemotherapy and radiation treatment, preferring to "put my faith in God." He noted that he might have another year, or might not, but "when the man upstairs pulls my string, I'm ready to go."

Until then, he plans to spend as much time as he can with his daughter, "telling stories and catching up on the 44 years that we've missed. Time is precious now, so we've got to make the most of it."

Laune hopes their example can inspire other adopted children, and has posted their story on her web site, www.andrealaune.com. She also made a CD, "Lost and Found," that includes the songs she recently sang to him and guests at the awards dinner.

There's a possible father-daughter skydiving adventure in the works.

"Having this time is very sacred, very special to me, and to him," Laune said.

So for now, what'll they do, is whatever they can, as long as they're together.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2012...gs_father.html

[Paslode]

Very nice story. She was very fortunate her mother gave contact permission, without it you're pretty much hosed.

[CSB]

Cute story, but I'm throwing down the bullshit card on this:

She didn't know that her father -- who had served in a clandestine Special Forces unit in Vietnam, working with the CIA -- had changed his name after the war to Jim Cole (the name of his mother's second husband).

---

Cole, now 69, of Berea, said he changed his name because he wanted to avoid being connected to some of the military operations that were classified for more than 30 years, and possible retribution for his role in those missions.

I suspect the name change had more to do with avoiding a paternity suit than
concealing active military service with Special Forces.

He hasn't been shy about his Special Forces background:

When he registered his first BMW in 2005, (the 2004 M3) he affixed
the vanity license plate: GBERET.

He transferred that "GBERET" plate to his Audi A4 in November of 2011.

And when he registered his second BMW in 2005, (the 2003 model 745LI)
he affixed the vanity license plate: 1STSFG.

Here's an article about him, with a photograph of a young enlisted SF soldier
with a post 1963 1st Group flash:

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011...sion_will.html

[mark46th]

I was in the 46th Co from 1972-1974. A bunch of us went back to Thailand in 2005 to see some of the old sites. When I told my older brother I was going, he said, "Going over to visit the grandkids?"

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by CSB

Cute story, but I'm throwing down the bullshit card on this:



I suspect the name change had more to do with avoiding a paternity suit than
concealing active military service with Special Forces.

He hasn't been shy about his Special Forces background:

When he registered his first BMW in 2005, (the 2004 M3) he affixed
the vanity license plate: GBERET.

He transferred that "GBERET" plate to his Audi A4 in November of 2011.

And when he registered his second BMW in 2005, (the 2003 model 745LI)
he affixed the vanity license plate: 1STSFG.

Here's an article about him, with a photograph of a young enlisted SF soldier
with a post 1963 1st Group flash:

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011...sion_will.html

I agree wholeheartedly.

He was hiding from someone, and I doubt very seriously it was the Vietnamese.

TR

[Utah Bob]

My mother was married in 43 to an Air Corps pilot. Shen had a daughter in 44, my half sister. They divorced a year later and she married my father after the war. I was born in 48.
My sister only found out she had a different father when she was a teenager. Years later she contacted him because of some health problems that had genetic links. He refused to talk to her or have anything to do with her.

At least Cole has done the right thing. Good for him, regardless of whatever the motive might have been for his name change.