Reflections on Veterans Day
©2010 Daniel A. Brown
Veterans Day is usually the time to reflect on all those who served but I choose to focus on two individuals I knew personally. I met the first back in June of 1970, a turbulent time at the height of the Vietnam Era where I found myself stranded by the side of the Trans-Canadian Highway, right outside of Calgary, Alberta. I was in a rather sorry state, low on cash, suffering from a dormant form of pneumonia (caused by sleeping in the cold outdoors for several nights) and trying to get back to New York City. To the west, a monstrous storm front was bearing down upon me and on the Canadian prairies, there’s no place to hide. I had the shocking revelation that my young life might soon be in serious danger.
As I pondered this gloomy fate, an orange VW bus pulled over, the driver poked his head out and cheerfully asked where I was headed. “New York City” I answered futilely, assuming that they were merely going up the road a town or two. “So are we!” he chimed, “Hop in.” And that is how I met Bruce, his wife, Mary, and their big red dog. An hour later, the heavens opened and washed half the province away.
Bruce, it turned out, was a lieutenant in the First Air Cavalry and was on leave from a tour in Vietnam. As such, he was the first active duty soldier I had ever met, not a surprise seeing that I was in the hippie –peacenik crowd at the time. He had an easygoing way about him and despite our different backgrounds, we became instant pals. In fact, he treated me like a real brother, acting as protector when we ran into some border patrol types who liked to target longhairs, buying me meals when my meager savings ran out, and having me join him in his favorite family sing-a-longs. I found that I liked him a great deal and mused that he was a lot kinder than most of the angry radicals who ran with the vociferous anti-war crowd.
At one point, I tentatively asked him what it was like over there in Vietnam and he tossed off that he just sat around all day and drank beer. Now, even then, I knew that his was an elite unit and that he probably did more than just shoot the breeze (the Cav suffered over 30,000 casualties in Southeast Asia) but I had also learned that combat veterans rarely talked about their experiences. In fact, the more bloodthirsty a person sounded about war, the more likely he never fought in one. Bruce might have had a hard time telling his own wife what happened overseas, much less a complete stranger.
He and I parted in New York and I never saw him again. But I did begin a habit of running into veterans who opened up to me, sometimes talking for several hours, with me listening without judgment.
A trait I brought to my second veteran, my expansive friend, Fred, who shared some of his own stories.
Fred served with the Marines during the Korean War and anyone fluent with that conflict will recognize the retreat from Chosin Reservoir as one of more harrowing episodes in American military history. Fred was a “ridge runner” as he described it, humping over the endless Korean mountains for the two years he was there. As I expected, none of our conversation touched on combat, him preferring to dwell on lighter memories: A line of soldiers on the march, the point man reading the page of a paperback, ripping it out of the book and handing it to the guy behind him who read it and passed it to the following fellow and so on. His unit’s antipathy towards the Red Cross who charged the penniless GI’s for those coffee and donuts they peddled (the Red Cross has since changed their policy). Whenever they encountered a vehicle from that organization, Fred and his mates would empty the truck of its bewildered occupants and tip it into a ditch. But he had nothing but praise for the Salvation Army which gave selflessly to the troops without ever seeking recognition.
Fred switched gears on me by coming out with the following unexpected statement which ran somewhat as follows. “Ya know, Dan, you can always tell a man who’s been in combat because he’s usually quite gentle. The macho John Wayne type is usually a lot of bullshit. He then related the stories of Mr. Rogers having been a Navy SEAL and Bob Keeshan, - Captain Kangaroo – fighting at Iwo Jima. Although both claims are most likely urban myths, it did clue me into Fred’s thinking. That heavy combat tends to make most conscious men more peaceful, not more violent.
Not always, of course, and any veteran suffering from any kind of post-traumatic stress has nothing to be ashamed of. There but for the grace of God go all of us, including a majority of my pacifist friends. Therefore, as a nation, Veterans Day should be a day that we do more than merely honor those who served. It’s a day we should take the time to listen to them.
©2010 Daniel A. Brown
Veterans Day is usually the time to reflect on all those who served but I choose to focus on two individuals I knew personally. I met the first back in June of 1970, a turbulent time at the height of the Vietnam Era where I found myself stranded by the side of the Trans-Canadian Highway, right outside of Calgary, Alberta. I was in a rather sorry state, low on cash, suffering from a dormant form of pneumonia (caused by sleeping in the cold outdoors for several nights) and trying to get back to New York City. To the west, a monstrous storm front was bearing down upon me and on the Canadian prairies, there’s no place to hide. I had the shocking revelation that my young life might soon be in serious danger.
As I pondered this gloomy fate, an orange VW bus pulled over, the driver poked his head out and cheerfully asked where I was headed. “New York City” I answered futilely, assuming that they were merely going up the road a town or two. “So are we!” he chimed, “Hop in.” And that is how I met Bruce, his wife, Mary, and their big red dog. An hour later, the heavens opened and washed half the province away.
Bruce, it turned out, was a lieutenant in the First Air Cavalry and was on leave from a tour in Vietnam. As such, he was the first active duty soldier I had ever met, not a surprise seeing that I was in the hippie –peacenik crowd at the time. He had an easygoing way about him and despite our different backgrounds, we became instant pals. In fact, he treated me like a real brother, acting as protector when we ran into some border patrol types who liked to target longhairs, buying me meals when my meager savings ran out, and having me join him in his favorite family sing-a-longs. I found that I liked him a great deal and mused that he was a lot kinder than most of the angry radicals who ran with the vociferous anti-war crowd.
At one point, I tentatively asked him what it was like over there in Vietnam and he tossed off that he just sat around all day and drank beer. Now, even then, I knew that his was an elite unit and that he probably did more than just shoot the breeze (the Cav suffered over 30,000 casualties in Southeast Asia) but I had also learned that combat veterans rarely talked about their experiences. In fact, the more bloodthirsty a person sounded about war, the more likely he never fought in one. Bruce might have had a hard time telling his own wife what happened overseas, much less a complete stranger.
He and I parted in New York and I never saw him again. But I did begin a habit of running into veterans who opened up to me, sometimes talking for several hours, with me listening without judgment.
A trait I brought to my second veteran, my expansive friend, Fred, who shared some of his own stories.
Fred served with the Marines during the Korean War and anyone fluent with that conflict will recognize the retreat from Chosin Reservoir as one of more harrowing episodes in American military history. Fred was a “ridge runner” as he described it, humping over the endless Korean mountains for the two years he was there. As I expected, none of our conversation touched on combat, him preferring to dwell on lighter memories: A line of soldiers on the march, the point man reading the page of a paperback, ripping it out of the book and handing it to the guy behind him who read it and passed it to the following fellow and so on. His unit’s antipathy towards the Red Cross who charged the penniless GI’s for those coffee and donuts they peddled (the Red Cross has since changed their policy). Whenever they encountered a vehicle from that organization, Fred and his mates would empty the truck of its bewildered occupants and tip it into a ditch. But he had nothing but praise for the Salvation Army which gave selflessly to the troops without ever seeking recognition.
Fred switched gears on me by coming out with the following unexpected statement which ran somewhat as follows. “Ya know, Dan, you can always tell a man who’s been in combat because he’s usually quite gentle. The macho John Wayne type is usually a lot of bullshit. He then related the stories of Mr. Rogers having been a Navy SEAL and Bob Keeshan, - Captain Kangaroo – fighting at Iwo Jima. Although both claims are most likely urban myths, it did clue me into Fred’s thinking. That heavy combat tends to make most conscious men more peaceful, not more violent.
Not always, of course, and any veteran suffering from any kind of post-traumatic stress has nothing to be ashamed of. There but for the grace of God go all of us, including a majority of my pacifist friends. Therefore, as a nation, Veterans Day should be a day that we do more than merely honor those who served. It’s a day we should take the time to listen to them.
