by Dean Hughes
“Well, I’ll tell you this much: I feel a lot better when you admit that it’s a danger. That shows me you really are growing up. Do you still want to major in business and then start your own company?”
“They don’t have a business major at Radcliffe. It’s all liberal arts. But I do want to start my own company someday. I just don’t care so much about money as I used to.”
“That’s a good sign, too. I’ve had to learn a little about that myself.”
“Mom’s getting tough these days, Dad. You’re the one who’s getting led.”
“I know. But she’s a better person than I am. At least I recognize that.”
“Maybe I’ll come back someday and run a business in Utah.”
He smiled, waited for a moment, and then asked, “How about one of mine?”
“Really?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Maybe I’ll do that, Dad. We’d knock ’em dead together, don’t you think?”
Now he grinned much wider. “I think we would, little girl. And I think I’d like to invest in that possibility. Since you earned your tuition on your own, how about if I pay your dorm bills, your books and food and that sort of thing?”
“Wow. Really?”
“Sure.”
“This is a trick, isn’t it?”
“Not at all. What do you mean?”
“You figure I won’t stray quite so far away if you still have some financial control over me.”
“LaRue, you’re just like everyone else in the family. You always think I have ulterior motives.”
“That’s because you always do.”
He gripped his hands together and looked down at them for a time, and when he raised his head, he seemed much more serious. “I suppose I do, LaRue. I want you kids to do good things with your lives. I want you to be righteous. And I don’t know how to make that happen.”
“You’ve already done what you can, Dad. Now you just have to wait and see how it all turns out.”
“Maybe so. But that doesn’t mean I have to like letting go of each one of you. It’s hard for me, every single time.”
“Then how come you’re moving? We won’t even have the old house to come home to.”
“You’ll have a nice new one—with a couple more bedrooms so you can all come home at the same time.”
In recent weeks the builder had finally broken ground for the house Dad had been talking about for a couple of years now. Mom still didn’t seem all that excited about it, but she had approved the plans, and Dad kept saying how great it would be, with more land for the grandkids to run on, a modern kitchen, a better furnace, and all those kinds of things. But it all seemed very strange to LaRue. “I like the house we have,” she said.
“You’ll like the new one even better.”
“I hope,” LaRue said, and then she got up, leaned toward her dad, and kissed him on the cheek. “Dad, thanks. Really. Thanks so much. And don’t worry. I’m going to be all right. Honest.”
He stood up and took hold of her shoulders. “You have no idea what you’re going to face, LaRue. I almost wish we had the war back. It didn’t scare me nearly so much as Radcliffe College does.”
“I know what you mean, Dad. I’m scared to go.”
“Well, good. That might help.” He took her into his arms. “But I still wish you’d stay home a while yet.”
***
Alex, Wally, and Richard, with their wives, were seated at the head table. Al and Bea were also there, along with Hyrum Christensen, head of the state Republican party, and his wife, Merla. Alex had dreaded this night for almost a year, but he had never found the nerve to tell his dad he wouldn’t do it. The ballroom at the Newhouse Hotel was packed with people who had paid handsomely for their dinners, most of them people who could easily afford it, and now desserts had been served and the three speakers were about to be introduced. Mr. Christensen tapped on the microphone, then cleared his throat to get the attention of the audience. When the voices quieted a little, he said, “Could I have your attention please?” People began shifting in their chairs to look toward him.
“We have a great treat tonight—some wonderful speakers. Three truly great young men. These men—Al and Bea Thomas’s sons and son-in-law—each fought in a different branch of the service: Alex Thomas in the army; Wally Thomas in the air corps; and Richard Hammond in the navy. Al Thomas has warned me that these boys don’t like to be called heroes, and asked me not to call them that.” Mr. Christensen hesitated, chuckling. “Here’s what I want to say about that. I’d be disappointed if they did want me to call them heroes. But I would also be dead wrong if I called them anything else. These are young men who served our country and served it well. They defeated the devil himself, as far as I’m concerned, and preserved the peace for all of us. I will thank these boys—and millions more like them—until the day I die. I’m sure every one here feels the same way.”
Someone began to applaud, and then everyone else joined in. Someone else, at the back of the ballroom, stood up, and that set the room in motion—people setting down their forks and napkins, pushing back their chairs, standing in their colorful gowns and dark suits. But Alex didn’t watch long. He trained his eyes on the tablecloth, hoping that all of this would end soon. He also hoped that the order of the names, the way Mr. Christensen had mentioned them, would be the order of the talks. But when calm finally settled in and the guests took their seats again, Mr. Christensen announced the speakers in the opposite order. And Alex heard, in the descriptions, the levels of priority: Richard had survived the sinking of his ship, which was interesting, but Wally had survived the Bataan Death March—even better. What Alex heard about himself was that he had won the Distinguished Service Medal, a Silver Star, and a Purple Heart. He had parachuted into Normandy on D-Day, had been surrounded at Bastogne with the famous 101st Airborne Division, had received a battlefield commission, and had been sent behind enemy lines to help the Allies cross the Rhine. It was the ultimate set of credentials for a hero, the sort every soldier longed for—now that the war was over.
Bobbi patted Richard’s hand and whispered, “You’ll do fine,” as he slid his chair back. He walked to the podium, pulled his tie straight, and buttoned his double-breasted blue suit. But then he leaned a little too close to the microphone, and his first words sent a deep-voiced blast through the ballroom. He laughed, backed off a little, and said, “Sorry about that.”
He smiled and waited as the audience laughed, and Alex was sure that all these middle-aged women had just fallen in love. Richard looked the part of a hero with those crystalline eyes and that sculpted jaw.
“What I want to say tonight won’t take long,” Richard said, softly this time. “I love my country, and I’m glad the war turned out the way it did. But I really was not a hero. I was a guy like so many others who would have just as soon not gone off to war. I joined the navy before the war, and I didn’t really bargain on the things that I ended up doing. But that’s how most soldiers and sailors were. Americans aren’t warlike people. We don’t go looking for a fight. What we did in this war was what we had to do—and now we’re glad it’s over.”
Alex had planned to say something of the same sort. He wondered whether he could say just a few sentences, agree with the others, and sit down. Maybe that was the best way to avoid some of the things that he found himself wanting to say. For over a month now, he had been meeting with Doctor Kowallis. He had told the man some things that he had never told anyone before, and he did find some hard-earned relief in doing that, but he wasn’t sure that the talks accomplished as much as he would have liked. He hadn’t been as nervous lately, and that was certainly a good sign, but just when he had decided he was doing much better, he had had a terrible dream one night, had rolled out of bed screaming and flailing at an enemy that had jumped at him in the dark. Anna had called to him from the bed, afraid to come near him until he had calmed down.
“My ship was hit by a kamikaze during the Battle of the Phi
lippine Sea,” Richard was saying. “It sank in the Leyte Gulf, and it went down fast. Many of the men went into the water with nothing but life jackets. These men were in the water for the better part of three days, and more than half of them died. Some were eaten by sharks. Some couldn’t stand the thirst and drank the seawater. But most died of starvation and exposure. I was one of the lucky ones. I was able to board a life raft, and I’m alive. And for that I’m very thankful.”
Alex, of course, knew how much more Richard might have said about all that, but he was glad that he didn’t.
“All of us who came home from the war wonder why some died and some didn’t. We wonder whether we deserved to be the survivors when so many good men were lost. I didn’t want to die. No one did. In the movies, men die gladly, and I suppose that happens in some cases, but I saw how afraid
most of us were. Some men panicked. Others worried
more about themselves than about their friends—and that’s understandable—but most of us just did our best, and some
of us were luckier than others.
“So here’s what I feel. A lot of young men gave their lives for the rest of us. And we must never cease to pay honor to them. They are the heroes. We are their benefactors. I feel like we have to live worthy of them and their sacrifice. I want to spend every day of my life making this country, this world, a better place to live. I can’t do much. I’m not an important man. But all of us together—we can do plenty. Thank you.”
Richard walked back to the table and sat down next to Bobbi. She put her arm around his neck and kissed him. “That was wonderful,” she said.
Alex heard Richard whisper, “Maybe I should have told them the rest.”
“No,” Bobbi said. “That was just right. You told the truth. Every word of it was perfect.”
Alex thought so too.
Wally had already reached the podium. “I ought to pull this microphone down an inch or two,” he said, “but I don’t want to admit that my brother-in-law is taller than I am. It’s bad enough that he’s better looking.”
There was probably some truth to that, but Alex thought Wally looked great. In the last year, since Alex had come home, Wally had become so much stronger, his face getting back its old color, his chest filling out. And there was more to it than that. He always looked to Alex as if he knew something most people didn’t, as though satisfaction was a natural state for him.
“One thing Richard didn’t mention,” he said, “is that he was badly burned before his ship sank, and that’s why he
was placed on that lifeboat. He has done his own share of suffering.” Wally smiled then and said, “I started the war by surrendering. I doubt that qualifies me for a statue down on State Street, up next to Brigham Young.”
People laughed again, but with a certain reserve. Alex knew—and of course, Wally did—that that wasn’t exactly the right thing to say.
“I suppose we had no choice but to surrender in the Philippines, and the brass—not us soldiers—made the decision. But for a long time I worried that if I lived to see this place, you people would consider me a coward. My captors often told me how despicable my behavior had been. They said I should have fought to the death. But one of the greatest experiences of my life was to reach the Golden Gate Bridge and to be greeted by signs that called me a hero. The only thing I ever did to earn that title was to survive, but I will say, there’s nothing I’ll ever do in my life that will take more effort. I’m just glad that Americans have been willing to grant us POWs respect for what we were able to do—stay alive.”
The applause was quick in coming this time. People obviously wanted Wally to know that they understood what he was saying.
“I feel like Richard. I don’t know why I lived and others died. Over half the men in my squadron died, and they weren’t cowards or weaklings. Much of getting through was luck, but everyone who did get through had to find strength he didn’t even know he had. There were many times I thought I was finished. What seems so strange to me now is that I can sit down to a meal like this and think it’s just a normal thing. For three and a half years, I dreamed every day that I would someday have a chance to eat like this again. On most days we ate two cups of rice, and little else.”
Alex heard the stir in the crowd, and he wondered whether this was what Wally ought to tell these people. They knew all this, and they often used this kind of information to cling to their anger over the war.
“I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine. He was held in a camp during the war, just as I was. I told him that I had no grudge against the Japanese, and I want to tell you, tonight, how that came about. When the war ended, and I was released from prison camp, I had an experience that changed my life. I had been badly mistreated by a man—the Japanese commander of our camp. He had come within an inch of taking my life. He had tortured me almost to the breaking point. And yet, when he announced our release, a change of heart came over me. In a matter of seconds I went from hating him to understanding him, and then forgiving him. I’ve never held any hatred toward him or any of the Japanese since that day. The war is over for me—truly over. But I couldn’t have changed my own heart that way. God granted me the capacity to forgive, and I believe there is no greater gift I could have received. I know men who are trying to live with the bitterness they still harbor, and that is a curse I wouldn’t want to deal with.”
Wally paused, looked down at the podium, and then spoke quietly. “I mentioned my friend, who was also held in a camp. He has been able to do the same thing. He has forgiven those who held him during the war. He holds no grudge. His name is Ike Nakashima. He was raised here in this valley. He’s a good man, a good American, and he spent the war in the Manzanar internment camp in California. He’s like me. He wants to work hard and prosper and share with all Americans the good times that have followed this war. He and his brother, Mat—I’m sure some of you know them—love this country just as much as any of us.”
Wally hesitated, and Alex could feel the nervous quiet in the room. “I would hope that this group gathered here tonight—people who care about the future of our country—would think about the Japanese Americans who helped get us through the war. No one fought more valiantly than the 100th Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team—made up almost entirely of Japanese Americans. Personally, I think it’s time to heal all the wounds of the war, including those at home. We need to accept everyone—Americans of every background—into the circle of our brother and sisterhood.”
Wally glanced quickly around the room. “I hope I haven’t said the wrong thing. I don’t want to create bad feelings on a night like this. I just think the greatest heroes are people who love their neighbors. That’s something I don’t think we should forget even during a war, and certainly not after one. Political parties can only solve so many problems. We have to solve the rest of them in our own hearts.”
Alex was surprised by the volume of the applause. When Wally sat down, he said, “I’m sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have gotten into that.”
“No, don’t apologize. You’re exactly right. And people need to think about the very things you just brought up. Listen to them. They agree with you.”
Alex was getting up. The only trouble was, he had no idea what he was going to say. He had prepared some ideas, but Richard and Wally had said most of what he had thought of, and some of his other thoughts now seemed inappropriate. There was a good feeling in the room, and he really didn’t want to ruin that—especially for his dad.
When Alex stepped up to the podium, he found that he couldn’t see very well. Lights were shining in his eyes, and the people were mostly just shadows, heads and shoulders in silhouette. He felt disconnected from them. “I would have preferred not to speak tonight,” he said. “It’s really hard for me to know what to say to you. I do want you to know that I think highly of people who are willing to commit their time to our country. I know how much it matters to my father to elect good people and to see the country mov
e in the right direction. I haven’t been very political so far in my life, but my interest is growing. I think citizens ought to be involved, and I want to be a problem-solver, not just a critic, the way so many people are. In fact, this just might be my first political speech.” He stopped and laughed. “Except . . . I’m not entirely sure I’m not a Democrat.”
Alex hoped for a laugh, but he got only a chuckle, mostly from the head table, and now he was really scared.
“Richard and Wally have both said they are not heroes. My father once called me a hero and I almost took his head off. I told him never to call me that again. I’m not exactly sure why
I reacted so strongly, but one of the things I was feeling, back then, was that we shouldn’t make heroes of people who are forced to take someone’s life. We should make heroes of people who find ways not to kill, who bring goodness to our world. I agree with Richard that we should appreciate those who fought for our country, and I’m certainly not ashamed that I did my part. But right before I was a soldier, I was a missionary. And
I was never once called a hero for my missionary work—even though I believe that work was far greater than what I did in the war.”
These were things Alex had planned to say, but he was saying them because they were the words he had put into his head. He still felt a gulf between him and the shadows.
“We should honor our warriors. I believe that. But we must never honor war. This was the most bloody, horrifying war in history. Some say that more than fifty million people are dead, many of them women and children. In many lands, more civilians died than soldiers. People are still starving and dying in Europe. In this country, we have many reasons to be happy: we won the war and some evil philosophies were defeated. But at what cost? Those of us who fought in this war will spend our lives trying to forget what we saw—trying to empty our minds of the pictures that are left there: the broken bodies, the demolished cities, the scarred earth.”
This was not anything Alex had planned, but he felt his voice becoming more intense as the words came to him.