Battle Fatigue

by Mark Kurlansky

  The Chrysler has so much power Dickey has to struggle to keep the speed under ninety. He wears his green combat fatigues from Vietnam, which are not warm enough for Canada. I stick with my World War II fatigues, built for one of the coldest European winters on record and warm enough even for Canada.

  I haven’t thought about getting driving directions. I figured you just go north and then you’re in Canada. But Dickey seems to know where he’s going. He drives across the Peace Bridge. This time I cross over to the other side instead of standing on it in protest.

  In Toronto at last, I feel sad saying good-bye to Dickey. We hug in our different-colored combat fatigues and I can feel that he is shivering. I go to an address listed in the Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada. There are a lot of people who want to help me here—Unitarians, Episcopalians, Jews, Canadians, Americans. They have a house where you can go for help and information. We all just call it “the House.” Down the street from the House is a bar, the Pub, where all the Americans go to drink, listen to music—Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Country Joe and the Fish—and play darts. I have never played darts before but after a while I start to get good. Some of these Americans at the Pub are draft dodgers like me. Some are veterans. Some, you can’t tell why they are here. A few probably work for the FBI, keeping track of their departed citizens.

  I am living in a small basement apartment on a nice tree-lined street in Toronto. It was a leafy street when I got here, but not anymore. The dreaded Canadian winter has set in but it doesn’t seem any worse than a New England winter—except when the wind is blowing off the lake.

  I’m allowed to work, but the only work I can find is through a temporary agency, which sends me one week to an office and the next to a construction site. I am used to this kind of work because, due to my draft status, I did the same sort of temporary work in the U.S. while waiting for my hearings. Once I was even on one of those television shows where they try to catch people looking stupid. I was sent to this office where helium balloons floated to the ceiling and I was supposed to chase them and get all flustered. But I could hear the TV crew behind a partition giving camera instructions and laughing. They seemed to think it was funny that I couldn’t get a better job. They never ran the segment on television because I didn’t chase the balloons, so it wasn’t funny enough.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  A New Life

  February 3, 1972

  Dear Diary,

  This idea that I had, that I would be alone, writing my thoughts in a diary, has not turned out to be true. I think this will be my final entry.

  Through Professor Morehead I was able to get into a graduate program with Arthur M. Cantwell, one of the leading authorities on wolves in North America. Next summer I will be going on a wolf study program with Cantwell in western Ontario.

  I am excited about the program since Cantwell knows more about wolves than anyone alive. But I am also excited because Hillary Freeman is in the program and going with me for the summer. Hillary is a very fit blond woman who, dressed in blue jeans and flannels, looks like the westerner she is. She comes from the mountains in Alberta. It was clear to me the day I met her that she is also brilliant. I soon realized that everybody in the biology department knew Hillary was brilliant. Hillary does not really care that I am an American draft dodger. She thinks everyone should be a draft dodger and that it is the only sensible position but she doesn’t really talk about it very much. What she likes to talk about is wolves. We are both fascinated by their intricate society, how attached they are to the pack, how many rules there are, and how many different roles for different wolves there are within the pack.

  To me, wolves are much like the Vietnamese people. Maybe human conflicts are part of the natural order just like Moreland said. Wolves are despised creatures. They are said to be violent and cruel. Ferocious hunters, they work in packs, some hamstringing the legs of the prey while another rips its throat. But they only kill for food or for survival and are otherwise very affectionate animals, closely related to dogs. It is the human beings who kill without reason. They have killed so many wolves in the U.S. that the wolf could face extinction. Humans justify this by telling stories of the vicious wolf—the schoolteacher torn open, the rancher ripped apart, the children dragged away.

  In truth, there is not one documented case of a wolf attacking a human in North America. They do not see people as food, so they do not attack them. Why do people keep telling these stories? Of course it is to create an excuse to kill these animals that they do not even like to eat. So the real question is: Why do people kill wolves?

  Hillary and I can spend long evenings discussing this round and round—what it means and what it teaches us about ourselves. All of this has great meaning because it gets at the nature of human beings and at the roots of their violence, which is something I want to understand. And having this beautiful and brilliant woman to study with is making me see a pathway to a good life.

  I have written my parents about Hillary and my mother is very happy. Just between you and me, Diary, Mom is happy because she confuses the name “Freeman” with “Friedman” and thinks that Hillary is Jewish, which she certainly isn’t. Mom keeps asking for a photograph and I don’t send one because she would see Hillary’s blond, western looks and instantly realize the truth. But I haven’t given Mom much to be happy about so I am going to let this deception go on just a little longer.

  I feel that I have finally found my life and maybe that was the purpose of this journal—and so the diary is ending.

  Joel

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Cavalry to the Rescue

  Stanley calls me. He is visiting Toronto with three friends. They kept testing his albumen and he kept eating eggs. He says, “Eventually, I would do anything rather than eat one more egg. Even Vietnam sounded better than eating an egg.

  “I was in Vietnam for two months, out on patrol, when there was an attack from the side.” He points over to his left. We are sitting on stools in the Pub, a peaceful enough place, and it sounds like Stanley talking about our childhood war games. I am thinking he is about to take out the Japanese flag and tell me how he surrendered but instead he pulls on the shoulder of his baggy T-shirt and shows me a shiny round silvery scar the size of a quarter, near the top of his chest.

  “Sergeant Boomer, we called him. Swung his piece around to where they were attacking and blew a hole in me instead. Took one for America.” He empties the shot glass of whiskey he has in his hand and orders another.

  One of his friends who was playing darts comes over. Stanley and his friends are all in civilian clothes except for army T-shirts and they have long hair and don’t look at all like soldiers. The friend says, “Stanley was stupid enough to get shot by us. But he’s not the stupidest asshole here. Look.” He pulls up his shirt and turns his back to me. “Look at that,” he says, pointing out a large scar the size of a misshapen saucer on the lower left part of his back. “And then this—through the lung, baby.” He turns around and holds up his first two fingers. “Twice, man. Shot both times by friendly Americans. Genuine American friendly fire. But I’m still not the stupidest. See that one over there?” He points at one of the darts players, who throws and then smiles. “He actually got shot by the damned enemy!”

  They all laugh. They are drunk and getting drunker. “I mean, it’s one thing to get shot by us. Can’t help that. But to expose yourself to enemy fire? Man, that’s dumb,” he shouts.

  I am too curious. I have to ask. “Stanley?”

  “Yeah, man?”

  “You still have the stone?”

  He stares at me. Then he smiles. Then he laughs. He is shaking with laughter and his fist is pounding the bar. He struggles to gain control and then says in a hoarse whisper, “I carried that fucking thing everywhere. I even took it to Nam with me. Carried it into fucking battle, man.” He is staring at me. “Had it on me when I was wounded. Woke up in the hospital …” His voice breaks and he wheezes into laugh
ter. “I woke up and the thing was fucking gone!” Now he is looking angry. “Can you believe it? Someone stole my green stone!”

  “Well,” I say with a smile, “it was jade, you know.”

  Stanley laughs. “Montana jade, baby!”

  One of the darts players starts half singing and half shouting at the music, “And it’s one, two, three.”

  And we all screech back, “What’re we fighting for!” It’s a great song, but these guys are starting to remind me of how if you smack a lightbulb it will burn brighter. The trouble is, it will burn out that much faster.

  “Wait a minute, man!” Stanley bellows. “Hold the game.” He starts fumbling through the pockets of his green jacket. “Where the hell is the damn thing?” Then he pulls out a medal dangling from a purple ribbon. I have never seen one before but I know what it is. It is a Purple Heart. He staggers up to the dartboard and, putting a dart through the purple ribbon, hangs the medal so that the gold-trimmed purple heart with George Washington on it is directly over the bull’s-eye.

  All four veterans begin furiously throwing darts. One hits the medal but the dart bounces off. “Shit!” Stanley shouts, and he charges the board with a dart in his fist and begins stabbing at the medal. There are tears running down his cheeks. The others grab him and take away the dart. They take down the medal and put it in his pocket and start leading him to the door.

  “Hey!” he hollers. “Hey, man!” He is shouting at me. “You know who bought it?”

  “Bought it?” I ask, hoping I don’t understand, but I do.

  “Greased. Wiped out. Dead.”

  “Who?” I say, dreading the answer.

  “Your old buddy.” He sways a little as though losing his balance. I am still waiting. “Big Tony Scaratini! Big Tony thought he was tough until he ran up against Charlie.”

  Charlie. They had this first name for the enemy because the enemy was their friend, someone who could understand them far better than I ever can.

  “What happened?” I ask, feeling sick. “What happened to Tony?”

  “Don’t know. I heard about it just before I was hit. Somewhere up north. It’s a joke, isn’t it? That’s the end of Big Tony. Remember he never wanted to get killed when we were kids.” He does a husky-voiced Tony Scaratini impression, like all us kids used to do. “I’m not dead. I’m keeping da hat.” Stanley starts laughing but he could never do a good Scaratini like Donnie LePine. “Or maybe Charlie didn’t get him. Maybe we shot him. They’re going to kill us all. Cavalry to the rescue. Yes sir. Air Cav will kill us all—’cause we’re air mobile!”

  I don’t really know what he is saying but then he starts crying again and the others lead him away.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Just like that

  Just like that. Tony Scaratini’s life is over. I have not been in a very good frame of mind since Stanley’s visit. Now I am going over to the House to see if I can find out what happened to Tony Scaratini. But Hillary stops me as I am leaving to tell me she is not going on the Ontario wolf project this summer. The U.S. government has a new project to introduce Canadian wolves to parts of Idaho and Montana where the local hunters and ranchers have killed off the population. It is an exciting and controversial project because, of course, the people who killed all the American wolves will want to kill the Canadian ones too, saying that they are killing sheep and threatening children and could destroy the ranching industry—just like the Vietnamese are spreading Communism and endangering our way of life. But this time the federal government is going to protect the wolves. I envy Hillary working on this but we both know I won’t be able to go because it involves traveling in the U.S. She says she will be back in six months but for some reason I don’t think she will.

  So now, on my way to find out about Tony Scaratini, I have more than one reason to be in a dark mood. The House has information on everything about the war. You can even find out how many Purple Hearts they have given in Vietnam. So far it’s almost two hundred thousand. Almost fifty thousand American troops have been killed. They warn you that the number changes every day. There may be a few more since I read the number a few minutes ago.

  The House doesn’t tell you how many Vietnamese have been killed. The U.S. military does. They call it the “body count.” The body count is a tricky thing. They like to give the body count because it shows that a lot more of them are dying than us. It makes it look like we’re winning. But we’re not. On the other hand, they don’t want too high a body count. They don’t like to count the civilians and they like to keep the Vietnamese casualty number down—far ahead of ours but not so high that people can see what a slaughter the whole thing is.

  The House has a book, really a stack of papers two inches thick, bound with rings, listing everyone killed in Vietnam. It gives last name first and then “KIA,” killed in action. I turn to “S” to look for “Scaratini, Anthony.” There is Sabatini … Scaller, Scanlon, Scranton …” I stop and think a second. Scranton. “Scr” is after “Scar.” Scaratini isn’t there. I go back and check again. Could they have misspelled his name? I check every name under “S,” all six pages, and Tony is not there. It’s not true. He wasn’t killed. But there is something hypnotic about leafing through these names of the dead, as though by looking at their names I am acknowledging their deaths and in that way giving them life. There are so many of them. So many names. Imagine this many bodies. I look for LePine but there isn’t one. I wonder if he ever did volunteer. I haven’t heard from him. What about Lester? I turn to “P” for Parkman. Parker, Parks … no Parkman. Lester made it. He probably has his high school job back in Indiana by now. And then—

  It is as though something has slapped me in the face. No, not slapped. Punched, sharp and hard, and I feel sick to my stomach and a little dizzy. I look again. I have not imagined it.

  Pizzutti, Rocco.

  Had Myron been wrong? Or did Rocco just decide to volunteer? Oh, Rocco. What a waste. What an unbelievable waste. I think of Angela, who has now lost a father and a brother to war. There is a kind of librarian in charge of all these papers, a tall woman with long straight blond hair, a face with no trace of humor; she wears round wire-rimmed glasses like John Lennon.

  I ask her if there are any records of who was a draftee and who was a volunteer. She says that there aren’t, that they have no records on the dead whatsoever—unless they got a medal. They do have medal citations. “He’s dead,” I say. “Do they give dead people medals?”

  The humorless woman almost smiles. “They give most of the medals to dead people,” she says, and she hands me another ring-bound pile even thicker than the list of the dead. Much thicker. In fact, there are two of them. I take M–Z.

  There it is. Pizzutti, Rocco (KIA).

  Rocco got a Silver Star and a Purple Heart. He was a “war hero.” How he would have hated that. Suddenly I understand Stanley and why he hates his medal. I want to take that Silver Star and that Purple Heart, the two seedy little baubles that are supposed to replace Rocco. I want to stab them with darts just like Stanley did. I want to deface them. Instead, because it is all I can do, I read on.

  PIZZUTTI, ROCCO (KIA), Citation: The President of the United States takes pride in presenting the Silver Star Medal (posthumously) to Rocco Pizzutti, Specialist Fourth Class, U.S. Army, for gallantry in action while engaged in military operations against an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam. Specialist Four Pizzutti distinguished himself while serving as a Rifleman with Company A, 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. On 1 July 1969, Specialist Pizzutti was on one of the first helicopters to set down in a landing zone northwest of Kon Tum and immediately assumed a position to provide security for the incoming helicopters. As the third helicopter touched down, an unknown-sized enemy force subjected the landing zone with intense automatic weapons, small arms, and mortar fire. A hand grenade landed one meter from Specialist Pizzutti at the feet of an officer and three other enlisted men. Without hesitating and with rema
rkable athleticism, Specialist Pizzutti ran to the grenade, scooped it up, and …

  I’m not reading on. I know what happened. Rocco always had complete faith in his athletic ability. He thought that with his powerful left arm he could throw the grenade in time, but it was too late. I don’t want to read how badly he got it, whether it was instant, or how many men he saved. He is dead. What else is there? All fifty thousand of them have their stories. The Detroit Tigers lost a great left-handed pitcher. Who knows what else was lost with these fifty thousand men? When is this going to stop? Rocco. This was not Rocco’s destiny. Of all of us, Rocco was the one who seemed destined for better things. Most people thought it was Donnie but I always thought Rocco was the one with a destiny. And this wasn’t it.

  Chapter Thirty

  Rocco’s Destiny

  I want to talk to Angela but this is the only phone number I can find. “Hello, Mrs. Pizzutti.” I did not really know her. She seemed an angry woman, a little scary when we were kids, and Rocco and Angela didn’t bring us around to their house. “Hello, Mrs. Pizzutti, it’s Joel Bloom.”

  “Joel Blo—from Canada, I suppose.”

  “That’s right. I just heard about Rocco.”

  “Did you? So the news has finally reached the safety of Canada.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Pizzutti. I just heard.” I don’t know what to say, so I say what I am feeling. “I feel sick, Mrs. Pizzutti. I loved Rocco. I always thought that he was the best of us.”