Inheriting the War

  Daddy did return for a short visit. His orders called it an R&R, a rest-and-recuperation trip. The order is dated May 8, 1966. The papers issue Daddy a leave for Manila in the Philippines, effective May 10. Skip a couple of spaces over from “Philippines,” and in another type and ink are the words “and Hawii.” Daddy swore to Mama he’d gotten a hold of a typewriter and changed his orders so he could come home to us. He laughed when he told Mama about that.

  It was pitch-dark outside when Mama locked us inside the house and left to go pick up Daddy. Frankie, Linda, and I sat on the vinyl couch waiting for them to return. I was having a hard time staying awake. Earlier that week Frankie had dared me to stick my hand in a wasp hive in a banana tree. I’d done it, trusting, as Frankie claimed, that all the wasps were long gone.

  Liar. Liar. Liar. I got stung countless times. My hand swoll up till it looked like a brand-new baseball mitt. The doctor had given me sleeping pills and told Mama that I needed to keep my hand elevated. I’d taken the pills off and on all day long. After a half hour or so of waiting for Daddy, I gave up the struggle and returned to Mama’s bed. I was there, asleep, when I heard Daddy’s playful voice and Linda’s giggles.

  “Hey there, Sleepy-head,” he said when I stepped into the room.

  “Hey, Daddy,” I replied, climbing onto his right knee. Linda was sitting on his left one.

  “Couldn’t wait up for me?” he asked.

  “I tried.”

  “Let me see that hand,” he said, taking my right hand into his. He studied the swollen hand. “That must’ve hurt.”

  I glared at Frankie. “Yes, sir. It did.”

  “Guess you won’t be sticking your hand into hives again anytime soon.”

  “No, sir. I sure won’t.”

  Frankie grinned. Mama and Daddy laughed. Linda snuggled closer to Daddy and giggled some more. I continued to glare at Frankie. I couldn’t see what everybody thought was so funny.

  Daddy had changed since he first left us in December. He was thinner. Malaria, he told Mama. I asked her what malaria was.

  “A mosquito disease,” she said.

  We’d had plenty of mosquitoes in Tennessee. They could leave big welts on a girl’s ankles and belly. But I never knew bites could make a person lose weight. Daddy looked awfully thin to me. Like he hadn’t had a hot biscuit or a plate of gravy in a month of Sundays. Even his hair looked thinner. He had a worrisome look in his eyes, too. Like somebody who spent too much time reading and studying and still couldn’t figure out the sum.

  I was in the kitchen one afternoon when Daddy told Mama about a little girl he’d seen get blown up by a bomb. That troubled him. It troubled me too, after I heard about it.

  Daddy said the girl would come to the camp, and he and the other soldiers gave her C rations, pennies, gum, or candy, whatever they had. Frankie and I liked to get into Daddy’s C rations, too. Not because the food tasted good. Most of it smelled and looked like cat food. We just liked the cans because they were painted army green. When we ate from them, we pretended to be soldiers in the jungles.

  Daddy leaned his chair back on two legs as he took a draw from his cigarette. A little bit of the Pet milk he’d poured over his bowl of cobbler earlier had turned the color of peaches.

  “The Viet Cong strapped a bomb around her,” Daddy said, recalling the moment he’d seen the little girl explode. Mama stood by the kitchen sink, drying a plate, listening to Daddy. She didn’t say a word. “She was just a little girl, about Linda’s size,” Daddy said. “She was always asking me for pennies, for gum. They strap these kids with bombs and send them into our camps. There’s nothing we can do.”

  Daddy took another drag from his cigarette and mashed the end of it into his plate. Mama kept drying dishes. I studied the sadness on my daddy’s face. He looked defeated. Tired. Plumb worn-out. I walked over and wrapped my arms around his neck from behind. He patted my hands. “Hey there, Sissy,” he said.

  “Hey, Daddy,” I replied.

  “Wanna go for a ride?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Run go get Linda,” he instructed. “She can come with us.”

  Daddy loved to take Linda and me riding on his moped in between the rows of pineapple fields near our house. He’d found the moped in a ditch one day and brought it home and fixed it up. If something had an engine, Daddy could get it to run. He’d spend hours lying on his back underneath a car, tinkering with its parts. I don’t ever remember any car we ever owned breaking down. But Daddy always found some sort of reason to spend his Saturday afternoons underneath the car’s hood. The only thing he seemed to love more than fixing car engines was driving cars. Fast. He and Mama shared that, too. Their lead-footed ways.

  One day, back in 1957, it had gotten him into a mess of trouble and practically killed Granny Ruth. He had her in the passenger seat beside him when he was broadsided on a highway outside Knoxville. Granny Ruth was hurt real bad. She spent weeks lying in the hospital bed. Mama says Granny Ruth never did fully recover from that wreck. She died from a stroke in 1962, shortly before we left for Hawaii.

  Mama didn’t like Daddy taking us girls out on the moped. She wouldn’t ride it with him except for a time or two, down to the end of the street. And she wouldn’t watch as we whizzed in and out of the red dirt roads of Wahiawa’s pineapple fields. But Linda and I loved it. We squealed with delight, especially when Daddy revved up the engine.

  “Faster, faster!” Linda would scream.

  “Yeah, faster, faster!” I’d chime in.

  Our hair, hers dark, mine blond, would whip every which way about our heads. Daddy would yell at us, “Hang on tight!”

  Linda sat in front between his legs and gripped the bike’s handles. Daddy kept one arm around her. I sat on the back, grasping his waist. Sometimes, when he wanted to go really fast, he’d have one of us wait in the fields while he took the other out. “Safer that way,” he said.

  He wouldn’t go far, but he’d go as fast as the bike would take him. It was probably only zero to thirty in five minutes, but Linda and I felt like we were going at the speed of light. It was better than a Scrambler ride at the fair. Plus, we got the extra kick of having Daddy all to ourselves.

  During that time he was home in May 1966, Daddy took Linda and me for several rides in the pineapple fields. He took Mama fishing along Oahu’s North Shore. And he tossed balls with Frankie in the driveway. He ate hot biscuits and milk gravy that Mama made.

  Daddy didn’t talk much of war or of Vietnam. Other than the story of the little girl, I never heard him mention it again. He cleaned his gear, shined his boots, and grew sadly quiet as it got closer to the time when he had to return. He didn’t make me any more promises. But this time I wasn’t worried about his leaving. He’d come home just like he’d said. I figured he’d be home again soon enough. So on May 20, 1966, I barely woke at all when Daddy came in to kiss me good-bye.

  “I love you, Karen.”

  “I love you too, Daddy,” I said. I sat up and gave him a hug. He flipped off the overhead light, and I fell back to sleep, confident that there would be plenty of time for more hugs from Daddy.

  In June our family returned to Rogersville in anticipation of that promise. Daddy said he’d be home in time for my tenth birthday on November 12. Perhaps even on Veterans Day.

  Daddy kept his promise, in a way. He did come back. Via airmail, in a cargo plane full of caskets.

  The tears streaming down Mama’s face frightened me.

  Grandpa Harve didn’t rise from his lawn chair until the man in the jeep pulled away. And if he ever hugged or comforted his daughter in any way, I never witnessed it. But tears trickled from beneath his dark glasses throughout the rest of the day. Grandpa Harve loved Daddy as much as any of us.

  As I tried to sleep that first night, fear blanketed me. Never warm, it at least wrapped me up real tight. I took refuge in fear’s cocoon. Sometimes I still do.

  I could hear Mama’s cries through the thin p
anel boards that separated our bedrooms. She had cried all day long. Loud, wailing cries. Bitter water. That day I’d seen Mama raise her head and plead with God Almighty Himself. She kept asking Him the same question over and over. “Why me, God? Why me?”

  If God gave her an answer, I never heard it.

  I wasn’t bold enough to ask God why myself. I figured you had to know Him well enough to ask such a personal question. Still, I prayed each night. Clasping my throat, I prayed the only prayer I knew: “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallow’d be thy name.”

  Sometimes I fell asleep before I got to the part about “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” But not usually. Getting to sleep is hard when you’re worried about having your head cut off. It was a notion I obsessed over after I overheard some kinfolk discuss whether somebody had tried to cut off Daddy’s head. From that moment on, for years to come, decapitation haunted my slumber. Avoiding dismemberment became my focus early in life.

  Prior to Daddy’s death, I had never even thought much about my neck before. The only times I ever noticed I had a neck were when Mama told me there was enough dirt in its creases to grow cotton. But nearly every night hence, I fell into a fitful sleep with my hands resting on my throat. I figured being asleep was too much like being dead. No telling what people do to you when you’re dead or asleep.

  Perhaps it’s different for the dead. Perhaps the dead know what’s going on in a way the sleeping don’t. But can they really offer any help? Or is it just like those dreams where an intruder climbs into your bedroom window and he’s stealthily coming toward you, and you begin to scream for help? Then you wake up and your mouth is open, but there is no sound at all. Just the clock ticking, the refrigerator humming, and dark silence.

  I suspect if Daddy really saw how hurt we all were, he would have done something to help us. But he didn’t. I hope it’s because he couldn’t—not because he was so busy rejoicing up in heaven that he didn’t care about the hell he’d left us in.

  It’s hard to explain what losing a father does to a family. Daddy’s death is the road marker we kids use to measure our life’s journey. Before his death, ours was a home filled with intimacy and devotion. After his death, it was filled with chaos and destruction.

  I thought about our family’s loss decades later while reading an article published in The Oregonian. It was the police account of a young man whose body had surfaced in the Columbia River. Hoping that somebody could help identify the boy, the newspaper ran a photo of the shirt he was wearing. It was a custom-made T-shirt with the picture of a skull on it. Law enforcement officials couldn’t identify the boy because his head was missing.

  That shirt was his only legacy. And unless someone recognized it, his headless body would be buried in a grave marked “John Doe.” Whatever thoughts or memories his soul would carry into the afterlife would literally be cut off forever.

  I think that’s what losing Daddy did to us. With him gone, we were headless. It was as if somebody came into our home with a machete and in one swift slice decapitated our entire family.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Inheriting the War is the culmination of 10 years of research and conversations. I am indebted to the many writers, veterans, family, friends, colleagues, and mentors who have spoken with me over the years, pointed me in the right direction, and in so many ways guided and nurtured this anthology. I’m especially grateful to Cathy Linh Che and Ocean Vuong for their friendship, many conversations and role as contributing editors, and to the writers in this collection whose work has inspired me and provided a sense of community. With gratitude to the institutions that have offered encouragement and hospitality, especially the William Joiner Institute for the Study of War and Social Consequences—Boston, UMass, and to New York University for their generous support of this collection. Special thanks to Angelo Nikolopoulos at the Creative Writing Program at New York University. And to W. W. Norton, especially to Jill Bialosky for her commitment to this anthology, and to Maria Rogers, Drew Weitman, Nancy Palmquist, Will Scarlett, and all of the staff for their support.

  PERMISSIONS

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following authors, publishers, translators, and agents for their permission to reprint poems in Inheriting the War: Poetry and Prose by Descendants of Vietnam Veterans and Refugees.

  MARY JO BANG: Excerpt from “You Were You Are Elegy” © 2007 by Mary Jo Bang, originally published in Elegy by Mary Jo Bang, Graywolf Press 2007. Printed with permission of Graywolf Press.

  QUAN BARRY: Excerpt from “child of the enemy” from Asylum, by Quan Barry, © 2001. Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.

  TOM BISSELL: “Part 2: Chapter 1” from The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam by Tom Bissell, copyright © 2007 by Thomas Carlisle Bissell. Used by permission of Pantheon Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

  STAR BLACK: “To A War Correspondent” and “Recollection” from Balefire by Star Black © 1999 by Painted Leaf Press. Reprinted with permission of the author.

  LILY KATHERINE BOWEN: “Lanterns” and “Falling” © 2016 by Lily Katherine Bowen. Printed with permission of the author.

  EMILY BRANDT: “Petroleum,” “Kapok,” “Cork,” “Ash,” and “Silk” © 2016 by Emily Brandt. “Cork” and “Silk” both appeared in Epiphany’s War Issue, and “Kapok” appeared both at Podium and in BluePrintReview. Printed with permission of the author.

  CATHY LINH CHE: “Los Angeles, Manila, Đà Nẵng” © 2016 Cathy Linh Che, originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 21, 2016 by the Academy of American Poets. Printed with permission of the author. “Split” from Split. Copyright © 2014 by Cathy Linh Che. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Alice James Books, www.alicejamesbooks.org.

  TERESA MEI CHUC: from Year of the Hare by Teresa Mei Chuc © 2013 Shabda Press. “Year of the Hare” first appeared in Memoir Journal. Reprinted with permission of the author.

  BRANDON COURTNEY: “Achilles, Veterans’ Hospital (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania),” “Year Without Dusting” and “Prometheus,” all originally published in The Grief Muscles by Brandon Courtney © 2014 Sheep Meadow Press. Reprinted with permission of Sheep Meadow Press.

  LINH DINH: “Viet Cong University” and “Prisoner with a Dictionary” originally published in Blood and Soap by Linh Dinh © 2004 Seven Stories Press. Reprinted with permission of the author and Seven Stories Press.

  DAVID ELLIS: “Aphasia” © 2016 David Ellis. Printed with permission of the author.

  HEINZ INSU FENKL: Excerpted from Memories of My Ghost Brother © 1996 by Heinz Insu Fenkl, first published in Memories of My Ghost Brother by Heinz Insu Fenkl, ©1996 Plume Press. Printed with permission of the author and Plume Press.

  NICK FLYNN: “Practical Joke”: From Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir by Nick Flynn. Copyright © 2004 by Nick Flynn. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Reproduced by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd. From The Ticking Is the Bomb: A Memoir by Nick Flynn. Copyright © 2010 by Nick Flynn. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Reproduced by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd.

  TERRANCE HAYES: “The Long Shadow of War” originally published in Soul Soldiers: African Americans and the Vietnam Era, edited by Samuel W. Black © 2006 Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Reprinted with permission of the author.

  JENNIFER JEAN: “In the War” © 2016 Jennifer Jean. Printed with permission of the author.

  ADAM KARLIN: “How I Didn’t Find My Father’s War in Vietnam” © 2016 Adam Karlin. Printed with permission of the author.

  ELMO KEEP: “The Book I Didn’t Write” © 2014 by Elmo Keep, originally published in The Awl, 7/25/2014. Printed with permission of the author.

  ANDREW LAM: “The Stories They Carried” published in Perfume Dreams by Andrew Lam © 2005 Heyday Books. Reprinted with perm
ission of the author and Heyday Books.

  LÊ THļ DIỄM THÚY: “The Gangster We Are All Looking For,” first published in the Massachusetts Review, by lê thị diễm thúy; and subsequently published in slightly revised form in The Gangster We Are All Looking For published by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House; lê thị diễm thúy, 2003. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

  NAM LE: Excerpted from The Boat by Nam Le. Copyright © 2008 Nam Le. Reprinted by permission of Doubleday Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited; “Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice” from The Boat by Nam Le, copyright © 2008 by Nam Le. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved; Reprinted with the kind permission of Canongate Books Ltd. Copyright © Nam Le, 2008.

  T.K. LÊ: “Part of Memory Is Forgetting” © 2013 t.k. lê. Originally Published in Angry Asian Man, 7/24/2013. Printed with permission of the author.

  ADA LIMÓN: “Listen” © 2016 Ada Limón. Originally published in Guernica: A Magazine of Arts & Politics, January 13, 2010. Printed with permission of the author.

  BRIAN MA: “July in Vietnam” and “Aerial” © 2016 Brian Ma. Printed with permission of the author.

  SJOHNNA MCCRAY: “How to Move” and “Bedtime Story #1” from Rapture. Copyright © 2016 by Sjohnna McCray. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org.

  GARDNER MCFALL: From The Pilot’s Daughter by Gardner McFall © 1996, 2010 Time Being Books. Reprinted with permission of the author.

  PHILIP METRES: “The Things They Carried That We Carried” © 2016 Philip Metres. Printed with permission of the author. And excerpts from “Hung Lyres,” published in Sand Opera © 2015 by Philip Metres (originally appearing in Field and in the anthology The New Poetics of Engagement) by Philip Metres. Printed with permission of the author.