He Never Talked of It A Veteran’s-Day Remembrance

Sometimes the nightmares would come to him for days at a time. He would sweat through the sheets before finally waking the woman beside him with his strangled outcry. On winter evenings, he would ask me to rub his feet; they were always cold, now that the remaining pathways brought only a trickle of blood. I would run my finger over the holes in his calves, covered by blue veined scar tissue, and wonder about the day it happened. But I never knew; he never talked of it.

I found out years later, after he had died in the middle of a Texas winter’s night, that he had confronted Rommel in North Africa, he had stepped over fallen buddies on the push from Anzio. I found an old photo of him, shaking hands with DeGaulle, and a French medal stored quietly in a candy tin all the years past. I wondered for what deed it was, but I never knew; he never talked of it.

Twenty years after he died, I sat in a Veterans hospital as another man struggled to postpone the failure of a war-torn body. He told me of his outfit, his fallen comrades, his own nightmares. He also told me of the other man’s journey, the roar of guns, the blinding light of exploding shells. I told him that the man had never talked of any of it, just said the real heroes were the kids who never came home. The old Vet coughed, his lungs giving up a pink stain on the cloth he held to his unshaven face, and said that some memories you keep, and some you keep hidden away. I thought then about my father and our long walks when I was just a kid; his hand holding mine as we talked about the good times and the good things - trees and sumer grass and bicycles at Christmas. I never had the nightmares, never held memories of the blood he left beside the road on that muddy morning, never knew of his sacrifice; he never talked of it. He didn’t have to. He was already my hero, my father was.

-- Lon (lgal@exp.net), November 11, 2004

Answers

bump

-- Lon (same@same.ole), November 11, 2004.

Lon you are very lucky to have been so close to your Dad. He must have been a very good father. I expect Kit feels that same love and strength every time he holds your hand.

-- Carol (c@oz.com), November 13, 2004.

Oh, Lon. (((Lon's daddy)))

-- helen (veterans@are.ours), November 13, 2004.

Lon, I have truly missed your writing!

An uncle that was very dear to me was in WWII. He was a prisoner of war who escaped at some point (over the Alps). That's all I know because he wouldn't ever talk about it.

I wonder about all of our soldiers who are in Iraq right now... I have heard some horrible stories from Aunts and Sisters about what they are enduring. There will be many scars that physical eyes just can't see.

The price of war is extremely high and I'm not talking about dollars...

My sincere gratitude to all of our Veterans, and my prayers for all who are still serving...

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), November 23, 2004.

Thanks, Lon.

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), December 06, 2004.

Thanks for the post, Lon. We all listen to the four services' songs, then go about our business in quiet respectful dignity that day, trying to ignore our inability to know what to say to them. Some really do ignore the historical foundations of our freedom, and that's too bad. But regards the not talking about it, it seems too important for us to talk about, and we don't have the words. It's too terrible to remember, and they don't have the words.

I went to a small country church in Arkansas a few weeks ago. They had a new pastor since I was last there. The congregation was smaller than I remembered. He was not an articulate man, more from bad organizational habits than from lack of content. He seldom finished a sentence and digressed so far an so often that it was hard to follow anything except his love for the Lord and his care for the unsaved, which was enough for me to call it a good sermon. Maybe it was the heat in the little chapel after the chill outside. More likely it was the Holy Spirit. I was on the verge of tears almost from entering.

A curt old man in a back pew told me to take my hat off (I had forgotten) and gave a couple of Boy Scouts gruff instructions about which side of the podium to put the American flag on. We stood as the boys entered with the flags, walking slowly because they were followed by a mostly limping, age-shriveled bunch of men with gray hair, including the authoritative old man, making their arthritic way by column of twos, then we said the Pledge of Allegience. The veterans, maybe seven or eight of them spread out on the front pews over on the left. Fom their ages all probably served in WWII or Korea.

We, the undrafted, don't talk of it much either. When we do, kid-like and fascinated with the action, some try to draw them out. Sometimes they talk because they need to after long years, and it really wouldn't matter whether it was to us or a stranger at a bus stop. Many Vietnam vets are among the street people in major cities.

The dad of a friend was either the only survivor or one of only two out of upwards of 250 men in his particular unit after they engaged the Germans with Patton's army at the Bulge. After my grandmother went into a nursing home, my mother and I ran across a paper shoved in a drawer bestowing the bronze star on my step-grandfather for service in Europe. My cousin lost his young father to a kamikaze in the Navy in the South Pacific. My father goes to a VA Hospital now. He avoids certain waiting areas at certain times of day because the elevators open and limbless and otherwise afflicted young men pour out, and the sight pains him. I used to rouse my college roommate by tapping him on the feet when he would wake me as he sweated and moaned in the middle of the night. He was a Marine sergeant back from Vietnam, going to school on the government's tab. When he awoke, he always said "thank you" in the weak voice of the exhausted.

Whether they did it because they wanted to or because they were made to, they need to hear a thank you. Thank you for sacrificing your youth and dreams, even if it wasn't your choice. I wish there had been better alternatives. Maybe the result was that I could retain my own youth and choices, although it's hard to point out exact cause and effect sometimes. Thank the Lord for the good fortune that I have not, at least so far, had such a hard task to perform at such a cost.

-- J (jsnider@hal-pc.org), December 08, 2004.