You Never Know: A Memoir

by Tom Selleck

house with our fraternity’s fire hoses. That’s what college kids do. That isn’t fair . . . but I don’t care. Their behavior was a real problem for me and haunts me to this day. I’ll tell you why. At about nine p.m. that rainy night, our platoon sergeant, John Lopez, was pulled out of the line, taken aside, and told that three of his children—Frances, five; John, nine; and Juliana, twelve—had been killed in a car crash. His wife, Ramona, was driving the station wagon and was in critical condition along with his other two children, Eddie, seven, and Laura, six. Their friend Damancio and his two daughters, Margie, fifteen, and Celia, thirteen, were also killed in the crash, along with the driver of the van that hit them. That’s a pretty heavy price to pay for a happening in Isla Vista. If John had been home, the timing and circumstances would have been different. And John Lopez would still have his family.