The Way I Heard It

by Mike Rowe

  “He was suddenly in the front of the line,” said one soldier, “his eyes flashing, pointing with his saber to the advancing foe, with a voice that rang clear as a trumpet.”

  “He came from nowhere,” another said, “and electrified the men. He simply willed us to follow him, and so we did.”

  In a totally audacious maneuver, the young officer led three thousand men straight into the flank of a superior foe, scattering the enemy and allowing his general to march his remaining force straight across the battlefield and win the day. But alas: something was missing. Namely, the general’s remaining force.

  Incredibly, the general had been worried about the wrong thing: Who would end up getting credit for this victory? And so he’d withdrawn his remaining men, settling for a draw. In the official battle report, the general acknowledged the gallantry of those three thousand soldiers, but again something was missing: the name of the brave young officer who’d led the charge.

  Three weeks later, when both sides clashed on the same bloody fields, it was déjà vu all over again: at the pivotal moment, the general hesitated, and once again, the ambitious young officer leapt upon his trusty steed and rode to the front lines—this time in direct defiance of his furious commander. When he reached the front line, he reared back on his horse. Once more he shouted to the troops, “Hello, old friends! So good to see you again. What say you? Shall we win the day once and for all? Shall we send these bastards back across the sea?”

  In the movie version, this is where the slow motion begins. The cacophony of battle drops away, replaced by soaring strings. Musket balls and grapeshot whir past our hero’s head as a junior officer falls in a bloody heap beside him. The strings fade as we hear his pumping heart and labored breath. Close-up on his left leg: the same leg that’s been twice wounded in earlier battles. A musket ball has lodged deep in his thigh. His temples pound as white-hot pain cascades through his body. Still our hero rides on. Another musket crack, and all is silent as a gaping wound in his horse’s neck spews a crimson river. The great beast howls, rears back, and collapses on our hero, shattering his wounded left leg.

  Fade to black.

  There are rare moments that turn the tide of every battle, rare battles that turn the tide of every war, rare wars that turn the tide of human history. That was one of those moments in one of those battles in one of those wars. As in the Battle of Hastings in 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy, conquered England. As in the Battle of Orléans in 1429, when Joan of Arc saved France. As in D-Day in 1944, when Dwight D. Eisenhower directed the Allied advance into Normandy. The heroes of those battles were recognized for their valor. One became a king, one a saint, one a president. All were honored with statues that stand to this day.

  So, too, was the young officer with the shattered leg who lay beneath his horse 240 years ago. Indeed, on that very spot on this very day, you can still see the monument to our hero, erected a hundred years after his glorious charge, carved in granite to last through the ages. The inscription on the back spells out the magnitude of his contribution: “In memory of ‘the most brilliant soldier’ of the Continental Army, who was desperately wounded on this spot… winning for his countrymen the Decisive Battle of the American Revolution.”

  That’s high praise. But it’s curious—if you visit this monument for yourself, you might notice that something… is missing. For starters, the hero’s gaze. His eyes are not overlooking the Hudson Valley in triumph, as you might expect them to be—because his statue has no head. His left hand does not hold the reins of his trusty steed, and his right hand does not point a gleaming saber toward the enemy—because his statue has no arms. Closer inspection reveals that something else is missing: shoulders, along with hips and a torso. The legs are conspicuously absent. Even the trusty steed to which the aforementioned reins might be attached is nowhere to be found. Indeed, there is nothing to this monument but a left boot, draped unceremoniously over the muzzle of a cannon.

  And then you understand why. The young officer memorialized in such a strange fashion forgot to do something on that fateful day—he forgot to die. Pity. Had he simply bled to death in the mud underneath his horse, he’d have cities and schools named in his honor today, along with a proper statue that included his horse, his saber, and the rest of his body.

  But alas, our hero not only survived the battle, he refused to let the surgeons amputate his ruined limb. His ego would not permit it. He spent the rest of his life in constant pain, hobbling around on a left leg three inches shorter than the right while completely neglecting the less obvious injury that would fester in ways that no doctor could treat: the wound to his pride, which went on to destroy the only thing he valued more than his life.

  You may not remember Horatio Gates, the indecisive American general who squandered multiple opportunities to defeat the British. But I bet you’ll remember the name of his young officer—the soldier whose bold action won the decisive battle that convinced the French to join America’s fight for independence—a decision that, according to the French, anyway, turned thirteen unruly colonies into the United States of America.

  Who knows? Had General Gates simply acknowledged the uncommon valor of his young officer, rather than hoarding all the credit for himself, our hero might have made some different choices after his injuries at Saratoga. Maybe then he’d have gotten a proper monument.

  Instead, he got The Boot—the only statue ever dedicated to a specific war hero where something remarkable is missing: the hero’s name; in this case, the name of a young officer whose courage helped free a nation, but whose pride turned his once good name into the very definition of betrayal… Benedict Arnold.

  * * *

  In 2002, an artist in Oakland offered to cast me in bronze, free of charge. Though it was tempting to think otherwise, his generous offer had nothing to do with me and everything to do with free publicity. It was the kind of quid pro quo to which I’d become accustomed as the host of a long-running, inexplicably popular TV show in San Francisco.

  According to TV Guide, Evening Magazine provided a half hour of “human interest stories and local color.” For the most part, this was true. Evening Magazine was packed with segments about local artists, Napa Valley getaways, hidden Bay Area gems, quirky collectors, ingenious inventors, and the kind of people who see the Virgin Mary in their French toast. If there was a three-legged dog in Marin, struggling to overcome canine-kidney failure, or a grape-stomping contest at the State Fair, you could count on Evening to bring you the story.

  As one of the hosts, my job was to introduce these squishy little segments from a different location each night—usually a five-star spa, a museum opening, or the latest Michelin-rated restaurant in Nob Hill. Not exactly meaningful work, but I was good at it, and happy to assume the many perks that came with being a local celebrity. For instance, the artist who reached out to me knew that the promotional value of appearing on a segment was much greater than the $15,000 he’d typically charge to cast a B-list celebrity in bronze. He also knew that a B-list celebrity would find the prospect of preserving his enormous head for posterity too tempting to ignore. Like Alan Hale, Jr., I had not won an Emmy—an unforgivable oversight in a world where everyone is entitled to their own trophy. Perhaps a bronze bust of my chiseled visage could fill the void?

  My cameraman and I drove to the artist’s studio in Oakland. There, I sat for dozens of photos, each taken from a slightly different angle, until every square centimeter of my giant cranium had been captured. Based on those photos, and with the help of some mysterious software program, we made the initial mold, as well as the negative. Several weeks later we returned and filmed me pouring bronze into the negative. Then we returned once again and revealed the finished product.

  It was a win for everybody. Viewers got an entertaining look at an intriguing process. The artist was flooded with requests from other narcissists, all of them happy to pay $15,000 for a permanent reminder of their favorite subject. And I got my long-overdue troph
y: a three-dimensional, two-hundred-pound selfie.

  My delight was short-lived, however. Where, exactly, does one display a two-hundred-pound version of one’s own head? In the entryway? On the piano? Atop the mantel? Sandy and I lived in a modest apartment—one too small, it seemed, for this oversized doppelgänger. “It’s too heavy for the mantel,” she said. “And we don’t have a piano. Or an entryway. Plus I don’t like the way it looks at me.” Sensing my disappointment, she added, “Maybe I’ll feel differently after you’re dead?”

  She had a point. Statues and busts weren’t meant to be seen by the subjects they honor, just as photographs weren’t meant to be taken by the people who are in them. But what’s the appropriate waiting period, after my demise? A month? A decade? These days, statues are being pulled down right and left. Perhaps if we’d waited a bit before building monuments to people we think we admire, we wouldn’t be tearing those same monuments down today?

  Think about it: It took us a hundred years to give Benedict Arnold his monument. That gave multiple generations plenty of time to consider the depth of his treachery, as well as his valor on that particular field. As a result, he got the memorial he deserved—one that has yet to be toppled. But if Sandy’s right, and animal lovers realize the Russians built their statue to Laika not to honor her but to cover their own, conniving asses, should they reconsider that statue? What about Lady Liberty, who seems a bit wobbly up there these days, on that magnificent pedestal of hers?

  Thinking about it’s not going to stop me from filling my Facebook page with selfies. (Those little monuments are impossible to topple!) But I assure you, today, “Bronze Mike” sits right where he belongs—under a tarp in my garage, next to some firewood and a bike with two flat tires. He’s been there for years, out of sight, out of mind, dreaming of the day that he might emerge from the shadows to share the limelight with another monument: one that I’m in no great hurry to accept. The only monument everyone gets. The granite monument inscribed with the words we hope will sum us up, even as they let us down.

  WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

  George understood the consequences of words better than most. So did his son. But now, staring dumbly at the blank tombstone that would mark his boy’s final resting place, George was at a loss to find the right ones. What words could possibly sum up the life of the poet that millions of people all over the world were now mourning? “Loving son”? That wouldn’t work. “Beloved husband and father”? Hardly.

  In the end, George went with “Kata ton daimona eaytoy.” “True to his own spirit.”

  George was satisfied with those words. He hoped James would have approved. But, truth be told, approval was not something George had ever received from James. Nor in fairness, was it something George had ever offered his rebellious son. Indeed, father and son hadn’t spoken since the fateful day James had told the old man he was joining a band.

  “A band? What kind of band?”

  “A rock-and-roll band. I’m going to be the singer.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” George had scoffed. “Rock and roll isn’t music. Besides, you can’t even sing.”

  Now, looking down upon the granite bust of the young man with the long hair and the unearthly gaze, he contemplated the magnitude of his mistaken assessment. George thought about the thousands of protesters who’d been galvanized by his son’s words and music. He also thought about some other words—ones that he’d spoken in haste six years earlier.

  Back then, George had been patrolling a tense and dangerous coastline in a place most Americans had never even heard of. The seas were high that evening, the fog was thick, and the radar screen showed enemy ships approaching from several directions—approaching quickly. They didn’t respond to any warning or communication, so George did what he had to do: speaking the words that would change history, he said, “Open fire!”

  Those words went down to the gunners, men who—unlike George’s son—were not inclined to ignore his orders. For nearly four hours, George’s navy fired upon enemy ships that refused to leave his radar screen.

  Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in Washington, DC, President Johnson got word of the sea battle. He interrupted all three of the networks with some words of his own: “This new act of aggression on the high seas must be met with a positive reply.”

  On national television, the president asked for and received congressional approval to retaliate, and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed. Back in the gulf, though, after the fog of war had finally lifted, George saw why the enemy ships had been unsinkable: they weren’t actually there. The radar hits were not ships at all. They were anomalies brought about by bad weather and high seas, or maybe a technical glitch. Whatever the cause, George had been firing into a ghost fleet.

  George reported the error to his commanders in Hawaii. They called McNamara immediately, but the secretary of defense—for whatever reason—didn’t relay the message to the president. The air strikes went off as scheduled and, just like that, we were at war with Vietnam.

  Yes, George understood the consequences of words.

  Spoken in anger, they had divided his family. Spoken in error, they had divided his country. People still argue about whether his words were an honest mistake or part of a government conspiracy to push Congress into declaring a premature and completely avoidable war. Perhaps the answer to that is best addressed by the words of his son, who once wrote, “There are things known and things unknown, and in between are the doors.”

  Fitting words, from a rebellious boy who remained true to his own spirit. The son who could sing after all, and proved it, by providing a soundtrack to the war his father had started. A dead poet named… Jim Morrison.

  * * *

  It was Saturday morning. I was fourteen, and there was my father, standing at the foot of my bed, sharpening a double-sided ax.

  “It’s time,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  My father has a tendency to start conversations in the middle of sentences. He’s also suspicious of anything modern—like nouns.

  “Time for what?”

  I knew the question was futile before I had asked it. So as I rolled out of bed and pulled on my jeans and my work boots, I tried another one: “Is it cold out?”

  “Invigorating,” he said. “Your mother made oatmeal. Eat fast.”

  Our Massey Ferguson tractor idled outside as we loaded up our wooden cart: ropes and pulleys, jacks and wedges, two chain saws, and various other weapons of war. Mom added a lunch box filled with ham sandwiches and green apples to our arsenal, along with a large thermos of coffee. It was snowing already.

  “Try not to kill yourselves,” she said. “Dinner’s at six.”

  I can’t count the number of times that my dad and I drove the old tractor down that stone road. We’d go through the lower pasture and deep into the woods to do battle with the Pine, the Maple, the Oak, and (his favorite) the mighty Locust.

  “The hard wood puts up a tough fight, but it burns the best,” he would say. The fact that we heated most of the old farmhouse with nothing but a wood stove was a source of great pride for my father and endless inspiration for witticisms like “Chop your own wood—it’ll warm you twice!”

  The man took great pleasure in finding just the right tree. What he loved even more was chopping that tree down. Although there was nothing nearby but the ground for the tree to fall on, he liked to pretend that there was. He imagined himself as the contestant on some sort of lumberjack game show—challenged, perhaps, to drop the tree between a Mercedes and a school bus full of children, with nothing but inches to spare on each side. With pulleys and ropes and lots of delicate chain-saw work, he would coax the tree to the ground, determined to see it land precisely in the spot where he wanted it.

  Once that was done, we’d strip the limbs and the branches and cut them down to stove-length pieces. Then we’d turn our attention to the trunk, working backward from the top of the tree to the bottom. As the cuts became progressively thicker, the chain saw w
hined louder and higher.

  “Sharpen that blade, son! A dull one’s twice as dangerous!”

  I still remember how my arms shook, even after the saw had been turned off and stowed away.

  Hauling all that wood back to the house was a full day’s work, but splitting the larger chunks into smaller pieces that would fit into our insatiable wood stove—that was a chore without end. Every day after school meant an hour up in the woodpile with Dad. I can still hear his voice as I got ready to swing the ax: “Aim for the chopping block, son, not the wood. If you aim for the wood, you’ll hit nothing.”

  A smart man named Einstein once said, “People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.”

  Being Einstein, he was right: chopping wood does yield immediate results—it’s immensely gratifying just watching the progress unfold. But up there in the woodpile, the gratification was always delayed. Delayed because my father wasn’t just teaching me how to swing that old double-sided ax—he was teaching me that work and play were two sides of the same coin. He was showing me that hard things—challenging things—could also be fun. In fact, the challenge was where the fun was.

  Today I wonder: Did the Morrisons have a woodpile behind their house? Some place where George could show Jim that there were dangers involved when it came to cutting against the grain? A place to illustrate the consequences of driving wedges too deeply into the stubbornest stumps? What I know from personal experience is that fathers and sons can find the right words. They can find them in the woods when they go there together to get the fuel that they need to keep their family warm.

  CALL IT WHAT YOU WILL

  Peter stood dumbstruck in the doorway of his bathroom, searching for just the right word. “Ghastly” came to mind, followed in no particular order by “grisly,” “gruesome,” and “graphic.” There on the bathroom floor, sitting in a puddle of his own blood, was Peter’s uncle, Sir Samuel Romilly. Moments earlier, the two men had been in the study, going over the “Treasure House” Peter had been working on. Then Sir Samuel had risen from the couch, walked into the bathroom, picked up a straight razor, and dragged the blade across his throat.