Without Heroes, we are all plain people and don't know how far we can go.
- Bernard Malamud
I
was six when Dad went to Vietnam. While some people my age remember the
60’s for peace, love and rock-n-roll, we were a military family and
life was different for us. I remember watching the 6 o’clock news
thinking in my 6-year-old way that I might catch a glimpse of my father -
and, at the same time, afraid I might see him dead. It was a lot to
handle for a first grader.
Five months into his tour, dad was
buried under a building that was hit by an enemy missile and collapsed.
Shrapnel left a grapefruit-sized hole in the back of his leg and, after
they found him and dug him out, they flew him to Japan where he spent 7
months in a hospital having surgeries and skin grafts. He never talked
about the man who died on the stretcher next to him in the helicopter
that airlifted them out, except to say “I was scared I’d die too,” and
he didn’t speak more than a few words about what he’d been through or
give us any more details until decades after the war, when he was dying
of cancer resulting from exposure to agent orange.
He was a
strong, tall (6’7”), bigger-than-life, family man who loved us in
bigger-than-life ways…and who also got angry easily - probably as a
result of the trauma of war. (They didn’t talk about PTSD or traumatic
brain injuries back then - but I’m certain he had them.)
He told
me about his time under the rubble. “I was as quiet as I could be and
didn’t holler for help for what felt like forever because I didn’t know
if the Viet Cong were there.” Eventually someone saw his foot and
rescued him. I can only imagine how frightened and confused he might
have been. He was probably in shock.
He also shared stuff about
the hospital. “They told me I wouldn’t walk again,” he once explained,
then laughed about his own stubbornness and shared that he was
determined to walk despite what they said. After a while, he stopped
using a cane and his limp became so slight that most people didn’t
notice it - or how it affected him every day of his life.
Dad
struggled with hearing loss from the bombing and, even with the hearing
aides he wore later in life, he had trouble hearing in large crowded
places like restaurants. It frustrated him that he couldn’t participate
in conversations because he couldn’t hear what was being said and he
eventually learned to read lips which helped some.
Every day of
his life, he lived with the injuries of war but I never, ever heard him
complain. He was proud to have served his country and it wouldn’t have
occurred to him to mention the Purple Heart that lived in a plain hinged
black box in the bottom drawer of his nightstand.
Dad was a Hero and a Veteran.
Today,
I honor those who gave their lives for our country, and those who came
home to live with the injuries and losses of war in strong, proud,
silent ways. My brother, my son, my father, many dear friends, family
members serving now.
May this Veteran’s Day remind us of the life-changing, devastating costs of war — and what true patriotism looks like.
I love you, Dad. Thanks for your service!
