REMEMBERING FALLEN SONS AND DAUGHTERS; GOLD STAR MOTHERS FIND HELP IN LOSS.

Byline: Gloria Gonzales Daily News Staff Writer

In her mind's eye, she sees her son at the beach, sitting on a surfboard beyond the breakers off Malibu, where he used to go hang out before heading to classes at Reseda High School.

Or she remembers him bossing around his younger sister, Carlena, who was 13 when her 21-year-old brother boarded a plane at Van Nuys Airport bound for Vietnam in September 1967.

``When you lose a child young, they're always young to you,'' said Helen Hawkins, whose son, Cpl. Arthur ``Butchie'' Hawkins, was killed in South Vietnam on Nov. 11, 1967, just six weeks after landing in the country.

``I'll see one of Butchie's surfing buddies now and again, and they're getting gray and paunchy, and I'll think, Butchie's so young compared to them!''

The image of Butchie is sharp because Hawkins always has remembered and honored her son and others like him.

She remembers through monthly meetings of the Ventura County Chapter of the Gold Star Mothers, a group of women who have lost sons and daughters to America's wars.

Last Mother's Day, she remembered as she touched her son's name, etched in the black granite wall of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. And today, she'll remember as she lays a wreath on a veteran's grave during a Memorial Day ceremony at Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village.

``It's not all so sad and deep,'' said Hawkins, now 71. ``We try to keep it light and not dwell too much on the sad things.''

But she acknowledges that the Gold Star Mothers' common bond is loss, and their common duty is remembering fallen soldiers and helping needy veterans.

The Gold Star Mothers was originally formed during World War I, when families displayed a placard with a blue star in the window if they had a son fighting in the war.

``If the son died, a gold star went up in the window as a symbol to the world that this family had lost one of their own,'' said Robert Hammer, a Thousand Oaks investment banker who since 1986 has financed visits by local Gold Star Mothers to the Vietnam Memorial.

``Few of us know the pain of losing a child, and I think of these women as true patriots,'' he said.

Nationwide, membership in the group peaked at about 20,000 after World War II, but with dwindling numbers of mothers of World War I and II veterans and the country's mixed feelings about Vietnam, enrollment has dropped to about 4,000.

Butchie Hawkins served in the 101st Airborne Special Forces Division and was killed when his patrol came under fire during a reconnaissance mission near Chu Lai. Hawkins earned the Silver Star and Purple Heart for saving fellow soldiers when he pushed to the head of his patrol, lobbing grenades and forcing an enemy retreat.

``I imagine that at 21, Butchie thought he was smarter than the 18- and 19-year-olds in his patrol,'' Hawkins said. ``And he'd already been in the Army for two years, so he did know some things.''

Butchie Hawkins had hoped for a military career and had enlisted two years before being sent to Vietnam.

``I was surprised when he told me he'd enlisted in the Army,'' his mother said. ``I always called him a water baby because he loved the ocean, so I thought he'd join the Navy. But he was a paratrooper, and he loved that too, jumping out of planes.''

The Mother's Day trip to the Vietnam Memorial was a once-in-a-lifetime visit for Hawkins, who had seen her son's name on a traveling replica of the wall but had not visited the memorial.

Hawkins, who recalls the name-calling and protests many Vietnam vets endured when they returned home in the 1960s and '70s, was heartened to see young people paying tribute to those who had died in the war.

``There was a group of students from a Midwestern city that had lost 120 boys in the war, and the students had written letters to the soldiers, thanking them,'' Hawkins said. ``It was a beautiful sight - all those letters sitting on the ledge at the bottom of the wall.''

The letters reminded Hawkins of those her son sent her from Vietnam and of the strange peaks and valleys of her grief. Hawkins can speak about how her son died and display his medals, but she cannot read his letters.

``I can't bear to look at his handwriting - I don't know why,'' she said, the grief suddenly fresh and overflowing, tears spilling into the fine web of wrinkles beneath her eyes. ``I want to read his letters, but I can't stand to look at his handwriting.''

There is a sheaf of them, thick and yellowing and unread.

``Tell Carlena to write me a letter,'' Butchie wrote when he was just 30 miles from Chu Lai. ``I'll write everybody when I get a chance. Don't worry and take care of my brat (Carlena). See you in September.''

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2 Photos

Photo: (1--color) Gold Star Mothers member Helen Hawkins shows a photo of her son Cpl. Arthur ``Butchie'' Hawkins, who won several medals before he was killed in Vietnam in 1967.

(2) In 1968, Helen Hawkins accepts the presentation of an Army commendation medal for her son, who was killed in Vietnam.

Jeremy Greene/Daily News