I wrote this Memorial Day story five years ago in memory of the men and women who died fighting in Vietnam a half century ago. Some of them were my friends. Though the characters, settings, and events in this story are fictional they are partly based on actual persons, settings, and events.
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| Taps, Arlington National Cemetery |
The Judge sat on a park bench in the shady town square across from the Panhandle courthouse. He was feeding bits of his sandwich to some pigeons fluttering at his feet as they crowded each other out for the nearest morsel.
He was filling in for the vacationing Judge Porter. Just one more week then he could go back to White Deer (pop. 955), an even sleepier town than Panhandle in the Texas plains.
On the opposite side of the square Sheriff Tom was making his way to Mamacita's Diner to grab some lunch. He took a detour towards the Judge but hesitated, thinking the Judge might want to be alone after a morning spent listening to bombastic lawyers and their clients fulminating about justice, their gawd-given rahts, and the American Way.
But the Judge saw him coming and nodded. Tom touched the brim of his hat and said, “May I approach the bench?” It was an corny joke between them going back years.
The Judge motioned towards the bench in front of him. “Sit down, Tom.”
“So how are you, Judge?”
“Fine -- $25”, he chuckled.
The Judge pointed with his chin at a family walking on the other side of the square. Jorge, his wife Jenny and two kids. Jorge's little daughter sat astride his neck. He and Jenny held hands while their son raced ahead of them and rushed back laughing.
“Just can’t tell by lookin’ can you?” the Judge said. “You see that fella by himself you’d never take him for a family man. Looks kinda mean, doncha think?”
“Jorge's ok. Like to see more like him than some folks around here. Never seen ‘im in a fight except one time my deputy had to pull him off one of the Carson boys. Seems Harley sucker punched him just because Harley's Harley and Jorge's Mexican. Harley's got 30 pounds and 10 years on ‘im but Jorge pinned him down in nothin’ flat, Buck knife in his right hand, a hunk of Harley's hair in his left. My deputy pulled his gun and saved Harley from a real close haircut.”
The Sheriff shifted in his seat and crossed his legs. He wiped his mouth with the palm of his hand and said, “Jorge's a hard man to know. ‘Cept for me I don't think he talks to anybody else... well, I'm sure he talks to his wife but you know what I mean. Whatever he's thinking you could be guessin’ for a hundred years and never get it right.
“I remember one time me and Jorge were riding out near the springs, just riding and talking about nothin’ in particular. We saw something shiny on the ground. Jorge got off his horse and picked it up. It was an Army medal. Vietnam. I had one just like it. Jorge handed me the medal, got on his horse and didn't say nothin’. I said, ‘I got one of these. How about you?’
“Well, you know how it is with vets. We can talk about being in a war, lyin' about the fun we had; the bars, the whores, but we skip the bad parts like shittin’ your pants ‘cause you're sure the next mortar's gonna find you. But Jorge, his face went slack, no expression to tell if he was mad, bored, or sizin’ you up for a whippin'. Then he says, ‘I saw a dead man walk over there. On patrol. We're moving through a trail in the bush. Chucky Cheese, he’s walking point, raises his arm for us to stop. He looks to one side then the other and starts walking. Two seconds later his head explodes. His body took two more steps, shook all over then fell. When the medevac showed up we sent him home.’
“I thought he was gonna tell more but that's all he said. It's bothered me for years thinking about what he said, how he said it, like it didn't mean a thing. Why would he tell me something that way? Still think about it.”
They watched Jorge spin his daughter round and round as she giggled, “Stop, Daddy! Stop!” Jenny smiling up at them.
The Judge fed the pigeons some more bread crumbs and said, “My grandfather was a grunt, First World War 1918. I asked him about it.
“Well, Grampa didn't talk about his war. My daddy wouldn't talk about World War II. For years I thought they were just being tough guys like you see on TV or read about in books. You know, hidden sorrows, stoic, humble, manly. Name it, it's what I thought about them keeping quiet. Gotta admit I admired their toughness. But, you know, I've had a lotta time to think about that. They were tough alright, but not the way I thought they were."
He turned to look at Tom, elbows on his knees, leaning in. “I think Jorge told you real war story. It didn't make you feel proud of our boys or teach you anything about bravery or patriotism. It was just a story about what happened the day his point man was killed. They loaded the man's body on a helo, just doing what needed to be done. No heroes that day, Tom. Not a one.
“If you were waiting for the moral of the story or uplifting talk about ‘the ultimate sacrifice’, a noble death in the service of God and country, you missed the point of Jorge's story: that war is vulgarity writ large, a filthy inhumanity visited on the guilty and guiltless alike; a savage obscenity whose awful consequences pass from one generation to the next. This country loves heroes and Jorge doesn't want to be one, not then, not now.”
The Judge glanced at his pocket watch and announced that he had to get back to his courtroom. Gently patting Tom's shoulder he said, “Don't think on it too much, Tom. You'll never know who left that medal out in the middle of nowhere or why he did it. Sometimes knowing is worse than not knowing.”
But Tom had thought about the “who” and the “why” off and on ever since the day he and Jorge found the medal. It could have been a 19 year old widow or a girl he didn't return to marry. A grieving mom or dad. Or maybe it was a Vet himself who lost something in the war; something he knew he would never have again.
Near sunset that long ago afternoon the medal was still in Tom's shirt pocket as they rode along Newman's fenceline. They came to a red shale outcropping about three feet high. Jorge stopped and asked Tom for the medal. He dismounted, dug a deep hole with an entrenching tool, dropped the medal in it, filled the hole and tamped it down.
Tom bid the Judge goodbye and watched Jorge and his brood going into Les's General Store. A shopping day like any other, excited kids jumping up and down, Jenny admiring something in the window. Jorge stood facing the street, scanning it slowly.
Tom's thoughts went back to the day his friend Dave Tipton was laid to rest. He was KIA, Vietnam, not the only one from Panhandle, just the latest one. Tom and some other vets formed the Honor Guard. Remembering that day made Tom choke. Why in God's name do we think it's such a great idea to fire guns as a tribute to a dead soldier; saluting him with the very things that took his life?
He couldn't forget Dave’s young widow sobbing graveside. The Honor Guard fired the first volley. Cynthia flinched and looked up as though begging them to stop. She held her arms tight against her body when the second volley crashed in her ears. Then the third volley. She howled, curled up in a ball in her father's arms. Tom almost broke ranks to console her, but he held fast. He had a terrible thought at that moment: Who was better off? Dave or Cynthia?
Tom's ghosts from the war had faded gradually and when they made occasional comebacks he forced them into the past where they belonged. When young men asked about his war, he put them off. Sure in their youth, confident in their immortality, they would not believe that knowing was worse than not knowing.
