by Randy Alcorn
The letters reminded him how much he missed Oregon air, clean and exhilarating, and Oregon water, flowing and refreshing and blue, not stagnant brownish green. He longed for the gentle rain from gray clouds rather than the monsoons from black clouds that could turn dry dusty ground to muddy mush in ten minutes. But even more than the place, he missed the people. The letters offered much needed proof that other world was real, still there, waiting for his return. On Thanksgiving and Christmas, when he got hot meals he swore never to take for granted again, he’d take out those letters and pictures again, and share his meal with all they represented.
After basking in the warmth of their letters, Jake would write his own back to Janet and Mom. He’d propped up both their pictures by his bunk. There was no picture of Dad. Somehow it seemed appropriate. Dad had never been there when Jake needed him. So it seemed, anyway.
Sometimes one of the guys would toss his porn mag near the picture of Janet. More than once Jake turned her face away as he thumbed through the pages. He felt ashamed, but also lonely, so very lonely. Porn was like pot, an anesthetic that dulled the pain of loneliness, yet somehow with its counterfeit love seemed only to deepen the void inside him. It wasn’t just the round bodies of the women in the pictures, it was their round eyes, eyes like the girls he went to school with, eyes that reminded him of home. Home. What was happening at home? Would he ever see it again? If so, would it ever seem the same?
Visions of his first leave marched onto the center stage of Jake’s fevered mind. There he was, sitting in Bangkok, reading an American newspaper, his insides boiling with shock and anger. Who were these nitwit reporters who couldn’t even get the basic facts right, much less interpret their meaning? They talked as if Lieutenant Calley and the My Lai massacre were typical behavior for U.S. military. Even the communist atrocities, their vicious massacres of the innocent, were laid at the feet of U.S soldiers. If only we’d stop bombing these nice North Vietnamese, they wouldn’t hurt anybody. Yeah, right. Who started this war against innocent people? It wasn’t us! If Jane Fonda had her way U.S. school children would get the day off on Ho Chi Minh’s birthday instead of George Washington’s. Jake blamed her, but not as much as he blamed the journalists who promoted the shallow uninformed ideas of people like her. She was just ignorant and stupid and self-centered like the rest of Hollywood. But they, the journalists, should have known better.
What made these reporters think they were a cut above the farm boys dying in the jungle to keep their “free press” free? Who were they, pontificating on what was right and wrong, what was or was not a “just war” ten thousand miles away? What did they know of those who fought on the front lines for a freedom they were quick to spend, but which cost them nothing? Cost them nothing because other men, brave men, had paid for it with their lives? Distortion was SOP for these parasites building careers off other men’s sweat. They were like those blood-sucking slugs he had to peel off after crossing the rivers. Had these journalists walked the Ho Chi Minh trail, holed up at Khe Sanh or stood tall during the Tet Offensive they were so quick to herald, falsely, as an NVA victory? These bozos couldn’t lift a backpack or load a rifle or zip up their pants without an instruction manual. They wouldn’t know a Claymore mine if it blew up in their rear ends, and Jake found himself wishing it would. They didn’t know beans, the arrogant jerks. He resented them big time—“boo koo resentment,” he thought, commandeering the old Vietnamese expression from the French beaucoup.
The memories suddenly turned sweet as the movie rolled on, because on that same leave he linked up with Finney and Doc. Though they’d gone through training at Fort Benning the same time, there was no guarantee their years in Nam would overlap each other. But they did. Even then, as three lieutenants in different companies they could easily have gone the year without seeing each other. But as fate would have it—as fate seemed always to have it with them—they’d ended up in the same battalion, over seven hundred strong. Though they wouldn’t trudge through the jungles side by side, they would always know their buddies were out there, somewhere in 2 Corps, less than a thirty-minute chopper ride away, which compared to the rest of the world was like sleeping in the same bunk. And if they stopped Charlie today, they might be stopping him from killing their best friends three weeks from now. In Vietnam you clung to thoughts like that, to any thought that made the job a little easier, that gave it a little more meaning.
It was Doc who managed to get them together for that precious week of R & R. They all applied for the same week, requesting Bangkok, but knew it was unlikely all three of them would get it. But Doc, the consummate poker player, Doc who could bluff the devil himself, had won enough money to convince a clerk at HQ they should have their reunion. When the three friends met in Bangkok, it was no small triumph.
Finney was the first to reach their appointed meeting place. Jake snuck up on him from behind, grabbed him and cried, “What’s up, bro?” They slapped each other on the back and poked each other in the stomach, and wrestled, the way men hug each other without hugging. Doc joined them within the hour. They bragged of their exploits, told of close calls. They sang a few rounds of “A comin’ home soldier.” There was nothing so rousing, nothing so exhilarating as to anticipate coming home at last after having served faithfully. All three were on the homeward slide of their tours, Jake only three months from the end. They vowed to survive, to serve their remaining year in safer places and go on with their lives together back home. Jake watched in his dream as Doc raised his Budweiser in an elegant toast. “Gentlemen, it may not be much of a war, but it’s the only war we’ve got!”
They all got drunk that night—Finney too (it was back before the change)—and for one glorious evening, or so it seemed, they pretended to be home. Jake wrote in his journal when he got back to his post, “Drunkenness knows no geography. It makes where you are seem beside the point, which is probably why it’s the most popular way to spend your leaves here.” He had signed off 86, or some such number—the number of days he had to survive before hopping the chopper that would take him to the 707 that would fly him home. One day closer to Janet and his dog Champ and Corvettes and Dea’s hamburgers and flush toilets and real seasons, seasons with a wider venue than “boiling” and “insufferable.”
Jake reviewed the troops he’d known, seeing visions of gentleness and meanness. Some who fought beside him were the kindest, finest men he’d ever know. Moving in and out of his dream were three little boys in Benton County, playing war in the wheat fields, back when losing meant you had to buy the other guys a bottle of pop at Miller’s store, rather than be sent home to your family in a pine box.
Wasn’t that Slider, the grunt from Pensacola with the dense accent and the big smile? No, it was happening again. Slider, don’t go over there. Get back! The VC mine, not nearly as potent as a Claymore but deadly nonetheless, blew off Slider’s leg and splattered Jake with his blood. Someone cried out in pain. It wasn’t Slider. He was too far gone. It was Jake himself. Exploding with anger and anguish, he held his right ear, which felt like it had been punctured and still plagued him periodically twenty-six years later. Instead of rushing to Slider he turned away, later ashamed that in his own pain he’d let someone else reach his buddy first. Commotion and panic trailed off into silence, the silence of surrender that always followed death. Then the vacancy. The loss of a familiar voice, and smile, a familiar snore. Slider, a guy who choked on cigarettes but smoked anyway, a guy with a lousy poker face that would never play poker again. A guy who always carried his girl friend’s picture, who would never see his girl again.
Death. That was the enemy, wasn’t it? The only real enemy. The one enemy of all the young men in that jungle. The one enemy Jake had in common with the NVA he fought.
Jake writhed on his back, drenching the hospital bed with sweat from a jungle heat twenty-six years old. He saw disturbing images now he hadn’t seen until coming home, some of them worse than war itself, moving pictures of protests and debates and politic
ians’ lies. They’d made a promise to those good people, Hyuk’s people, and they hadn’t kept it. Men died, some of them his friends, to keep that promise, and the nation broke it. Then they turned and looked at those they’d sent as if they were bastard children, reminders of an ugly episode they just wanted to forget. Jake trembled with anger even now, and the anger gave him energy, pulling him back from the dreams and memories that consumed him, pulling him closer to the present time and place.
Jake saw light and heard noises. Were these incoming mortar rounds? He couldn’t hear the dreaded “whump” sound that warned of the coming blast like lightning warns of thunder. He had a splitting headache. He reached to his pocket for the aspirin he chewed like candy, but couldn’t seem to find it. There wasn’t even a pocket there. What was he wearing? Why couldn’t he get his bearings? Funny, it didn’t seem as hot as it should be. And the noises weren’t the right noises.
He heard voices, hoping they were English. Yes, English. Something besides a rock or blanket was under his head. Wait. Was this a hospital? He must be at Cam Ranh Bay. He frantically wiggled both sets of toes. Yes, he still had his legs, both of them.
He was so tired. Vietnam was a year without real sleep, only catnaps and dozes. I can’t fall asleep. My buddies’ lives are in my hands. I can’t fall asleep. His body obeyed. It would not fall back asleep. He would not let it. Jake opened his eyes again and held them open, stung by the light. Good. The pain would wake him up.
In the white and blue swirls above him Jake saw fleeting images of busy figures hovering about. One of them was mumbling and another nodded her head. Was this still a dream? No, he could feel the tension of the sheets against his toes. He also felt localized discomfort he couldn’t identify, from an IV and catheter.
“Where am I,” Jake tried to ask, but it came out garbled. The woman in white looked surprised.
“Mr. Woods. Glad you could join us.”
“Where…?” Jake sensed the word coming out his mouth wasn’t the one he was getting at. He hoped someone would fill in the blanks.
“You’re in Lifeline Medical Center,” said white dress. “It’s Monday morning, about ten o’clock.”
Jake considered this a few moments. Lifeline? That was where Doc worked, wasn’t it? “Car…hit,” he stammered. Yes, that was it. A car wreck. He and Finney and Doc were coming back with the pizza, Doc was screaming, he swerved and…
“Yes, Mr. Woods.” The nurse’s lips tightened. “There was a car wreck.”
“What…How…?”
Jake didn’t like the expression on her face. It was the look of a competent in-control professional faced with the prospect of bearing bad news.
“I think I should get the doctor to answer your questions, Mr. Woods. I’ll be back in a moment.” She walked out quickly, as if to outrun the sound of his voice in case it tried to follow her.
CHAPTER THREE
The moment seemed an hour. It was really four minutes. White dress was now accompanied by blue coat, a tall and commanding presence. There was someone else, someone smaller, who was almost hidden behind him. It was Sue, Finney’s wife. Jake moved his head to the side, glad it obeyed his brain’s command, and caught Sue’s eye. Sue smiled at him, but the smile washed up out of a sea of pain, and the implicit message frightened Jake.
Blue coat cleared his throat as if everyone was waiting for gems of insight to fall off his lips, which hid beneath his thick brown mustache. He seemed slightly perturbed that Jake’s eyes were on Sue rather than himself.
“Mr. Woods…Jake,” blue coat said as if he wasn’t reading it off the chart in front of him, which he was. Are you going to tell me my blood type and impress me some more? Jake had a way of sizing up people quickly, and for some reason he didn’t like this doctor.
“I am Dr. Bradley.” Jake sensed he was supposed to be impressed. He wasn’t.
“You, Mr. Woods, have a renal contusion.”
Jake waited for the explanation. It didn’t come, suggesting anyone with a three digit IQ was supposed to get it.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you have a bruised kidney. You’ve still got blood in your urine, but it’s subsiding. You also have some soft tissue injury, including neck and lumbar strain.” Though Jake could figure this one out, Dr. Bradley was quick to add, “an injury to your lower back caused by the whiplash.” He added with just a hint of a scold, “You also have a mild concussion that we’re watching. Your injuries are considerable, but we think they’ll heal without complications. Considering the condition of the vehicle, so I’m told, you’re fortunate to be alive.”
“Doctor…what about my friends?”
The doctor paused a moment too long. “Dr. Lowell has a fractured larynx. We intubated him…put a tube into his throat, to allow breathing, which is otherwise prevented by the swelling. We’re administering steroids to reduce the swelling until he can breathe on his own. He’s been given penathol. He’s still unconscious.” The doctor paused again, as if working up to something. “He also has some injury to his spinal chord. We’re not sure how extensive. We won’t run the necessary tests until we get his breathing under control.” The dull pain in Jake’s side got worse.
“The other individual,” the doctor turned to hear the voice behind him, then turned back, “Yes, Mr. Finney.” Another pause. “Yes, Mr. Finney Keels has a subdural hematoma.”
“A what?”
The doctor looked up in the air as if searching for alternative expressions, straining to put the cookies on the lower shelf.
“There’s a blood clot pressing on his brain. It’s between his brain and skull, restricting proper blood flow.”
Jake hesitated, then asked the question as if he were suddenly diving off a fifty foot cliff. “Will they live?” It was more than a question. It was a plea.
“Both are in critical condition. It’s too early to say whether they will live. There are too many variables to take into account. In medicine you cannot just…”
Jake’s dull ache spread within him to every corner of his body, drowning out the rest of the doctor’s words, which meant nothing to him. His friends could die. For a moment he was three hundred miles away and thirty-five years younger, standing with Doc and Finney down by Benton Stream, pocketknife in hand, performing that silly blood brother ceremony they’d laughed about so often over the years, but cherished nonetheless. They’d survived so much, even Nam. And now…a stupid car accident?
Jake’s focus abruptly returned to the room in the form of a threatening glare. He thought of vowing to write a column on physician incompetence, naming names, if either of his friends died. He realized this was irrational. The doctors would do everything they could to save Doc and Finney. Yet the adversarial feelings welled up inside. In desperate times, Jake was still a warrior, and warriors needed enemies to do battle with. If they couldn’t find enemies, they made them. It gave them an obstacle to overcome, a reason to push on.
“Make sure they live, Doctor.”
“Well, of course, the ICU staff is doing everything possible, but you have to understand…”
“You understand—they have to live.” Jake said it in such a way that everyone knew the conversation was over. The high-control doctor, caught in a low-control situation, mumbled he had other patients to attend to and slunk out of the room.
Now Jake’s view of Sue was unobstructed. She moved right in where the doctor had been. Even in her weakness, Sue emanated strength. Jake had seen it numbers of times, especially ten years ago when Sue and Finn’s little Jenny had died at the hands of that drunk driver. Sue grieved deeply, but her trust was unshakable. She was a rock.
“Jake, you’re just as ornery as ever.” Sue’s eyes sparkled. She loved to tease him, and the chance to do so was a welcome relief from the weight of her last eighteen hours. “After all these years working as a nurse, let me give you just a little piece of advice—threatening the doctors is generally not the way to endear yourself to the hospital staff.�
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“I just want them to take good care of my buddies.”
“I know, Jake. Me too.” Now her tears flowed freely. A few dropped on Jake’s forearm, above his right hand which Sue now held tightly with both hers. Her tears were warm. The rock was soft and vulnerable.
Jake felt helpless. He’d never been good in the hard moments of life. He ran from people in pain, unless there was a story. But there was nowhere to run now. The thought of a loved one’s death paralyzed him. When his dad died, he never said anything to his mother. What was there to say? In Vietnam two men—no, boys—in his platoon had died, and as a young lieutenant he tried to write letters to their mothers and girlfriends, but never sent them. In the middle of these thoughts, Jake caught himself. Finney and Doc aren’t going to die. They can’t die!
Sue rested her head on her limply folded arms. Jake grew self-conscious about his own silence. If only Janet were here. She’d know what to say.
As if reading Jake’s mind, Sue said, “I called Janet when you started waking up. She spent the night here, but had to go back this morning to take Carly to school. She’s at work, but she’s getting off early to come see you.”
“Janet…spent the night here?”
“Sure she did, you big lug. She still loves you, you know.”
There was no response. Jake couldn’t begin to respond to that one. Three years they’d been divorced. He felt guilty life was easier without his wife and daughter. It was also much emptier, and perhaps that penance helped ease the guilt.
The nurse reappeared. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Keels. Mr. Woods needs his rest.”
“Sure. Thanks for letting me see him.” She glanced at Jake, and gave his hand a last squeeze. With an apologetic tone she pointed to Jake and said to the nurse, “He can be cranky, but after twenty years or so he kind of grows on you.” Sue smiled back at him. Jake forced a grin. Both were in terrible pain.