Veterans' Day 2011

Following return from the European Theater after World War II, my primary thought as a veteran was to grasp the G.I.Bill of Rights and complete interrupted studies. As with most of the men with whom I'd served, there was little time to waste nurturing psychic wounds of battle -- move ahead, get on with life, put that war (as the civilians wanted us to) behind you. I joined no veterans' organizations, attended no battalion reunions or military observances, lost contact with all but a very few of closest combat comrades. If the phrase had as yet been coined, none of us had heard of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and dealt quietly, discretely, with whatever demons in flashback surfaced. The new life in a victorious, prosperous, confidently glorious America was to be embraced!

But it never goes away, that experience of soldering wars, and sooner or later one acknowledges the indelible brand of Veteran. It is most manifest in the instant recognition and bond you know with all veterans, frequently on first encounter recognizing that this stranger has been there, is one of us, shares the unfathomable alienation -- that impenetrable wall -- which exists between those who've looked on the carnage of battlegrounds and those who've not. Just this year, during travel abroad, another such instant: While seated on a bench overlooking a panoramic view of the Mediterranean, a white-haired gentleman on a cane unsteadily approached me. An American. I wasn't particularly surprised at his first words -- "you too, I assume, are a World War II vet."

In recent years, evaluating decades of a richly full life, I concede -- if rarely considered when younger -- that having soldiered infused my every other ordained persona: son, husband, father, professional, traveler. I supported the funding campaign for and attended the opening of the World War II Memorial on the Mall at Washington, DC. I am a Founding Member of the National World War II Museum, New Orleans; and of The National Museum of the United States Army, scheduled to open at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, June 2015. In on-going communication with the organization Paralyzed Veterans of America, I welcome the opportunity to extend them support.

This Veterans' Day (2011), I'll undoubtedly have word via e-mail from the one surviving member of my old outfit whom I know to be yet among us. He faithfully communicates on every national holiday or when personal news warrants it. If neither of us feel (or admit to being) anachronistic, I nevertheless savor a vanished America his brief words evoke -- a proud and progressive nation, world leader in the rebuilding of former enemies, democratically convinced of a bright future, idealistic and in many ways still innocent, globally respected as the liberator of conquered peoples. I'll remember, too, a tableau from a Veteran's Day Parade witnessed when a lad on the streets of Baltimore -- a slim, frail, whitened nonagenarian from the War Between the States in step beside a Doughboy from World War I. Never eradicated, could that glimpse etched in the mind of an impressionable small boy have possibly predicated a kinship which flowered in subsequent years?

Old Soldier Fades Away

He mentioned no ailments nor complained of anything, but there was uncharacteristic urgency in the phonecall declaring he’d like to visit Santa Fe. My response that I’d not be in town, that I planned to visit a daughter and her family in Minnesota was greeted with the proposal that we do it together. “Fly to Chicago, I’ll meet you at O’Hare, and well drive to Minnesota.”

Comrades for three years from training grounds Stateside to the festering fields and skeletal cities of Europe, we’d rarely seen each other once the guns were silenced. But the infrequent meetings as civilians—years, sometimes decades apart—confirmed the bond of brothers-in-arms as among the strongest determinants of who and what we were as men.

Yet it became obvious within minutes at O’Hare that something was amiss. Yes, like always, it was as if we’d seen each other just yesterday, that Eat-Drink-And-Be-Merry-For-Tomorrow-We Die remained intact, that we’d enjoy a high-spirited reunion. But I noticed his gait was slowed, there was bewilderment about where in the parking garage he’d left his car. Leaving the garage, he sideswiped another car, causing considerable delay with the police report, exchange of auto-insurance information, etc. We left O’Hare with our car’s dislodged passenger door held shut by a rope fortuitously found among paraphernalia on the back deck.

Having been through a helluva lot worse together than driving across Wisconsin and into Minnesota in a severely-damaged automobile, we didn’t consider stopping for repairs. Despite my puzzlement at something “different” about Old Buddy, we’d trusted each other too long for alarm about competency at this time. Past adventures and misadventures not in the line of duty, rough, irreverent respites free of military posts, had recklessly risked honor, even our lives, among the rubble and human flotsam of war. Close and tough soldiering not only fostered deliverance from those threats, but had—I’d long been aware—helped sustain sanity in a world gone mad. Not to worry about a damaged vehicle and a driver who seemed not quite himself.

Safely arrived in Minnesota, we enjoyed spacious and private guest quarters at my daughter’s home, and spent happy hours sharing the pleasures and outdoor tasks of the family’s wooded acreage. My friend, ever a charmer, won the hearts of all, son-in-law working beside him pruning fruit trees, a young child to whom he gave much attention admonishing me “Grandpa, don’t ever come back without him.” Evenings, sometimes dusk to dawn, we two oldtimers in our removed accommodations, mindful we did not disturb others, sat over a bottle before a blazing fireplace and talked the night away. Septuagenarians at the time, I was amused by the fact that we seemed essentially the same as the boys whose bold escapist carousals once countered pain and horror.

But undeniable, if not discussed, were moments of sudden alienation. Why did he linger on a stair landing, seemingly lost, on a flight of steps he climbed many times each day. Why did his left arm go occasionally limp. Once he spoke of his deceased wife in the present tense. Complaint had rarely been broached during our friendship, hardships were an accepted given, and my one cautious query about his health was quickly dismissed. When I expressed concern to my daughter and her husband, they felt it was unjustified. They saw the gracious, joyous, loveable man I’d always known. Only that, none of the changes I sensed.

At visit’s end, I elected to do all the driving back to Illinois. Dislodged car door secured by a rope couldn’t deter the assumption that we’d be safer with me at the wheel. We enjoyed the drive, laughing at, relishing memories dredged up from half a century ago. The lengthy drive tired me, but he was the first to collapse once we were at the small farm house where he lived alone. His surrender to exhaustion and the deep sleep which followed betrayed the courage mastered for the mirthful camaraderie while at my daughter’s home.

Not wanting to wound his pride, I did not argue his insistence on driving me to the bus-shuttle for the O’Hare airport. I remained silent when the car jumped a curb and careened wildly before regaining the road. Convinced by now that my friend needed medical attention, I couldn’t fully empathize—being in excellent health myself—with what he was experiencing. I knew his loving daughter lived nearby, checked in daily with visits or phonecalls. I chose to assume I could not be helpful. But truth registered as our eyes locked in parting. Before I left the car, he impulsively, tightly embraced me. No sentimental word or gesture had ever previously infiltrated the fierce loyalty and intractably mute compassion which forged our brotherhood. Was this warm embrace our Farewell to Arms?

Within two weeks, I received word that he was dead. I was haunted by the urgency remembered from his first mention of visiting Santa Fe, expressed to his daughter that I wondered about his strong determination to travel when he was certainly aware that his strength was failing. “He knew he was dying,” she said. “I and his brothers and sisters also suspected the end was near. But he wanted to see you one more time.” That knowledge was humbling, and remains so. But was not surprising. There was a time, never forgotten, when home, parents, loved ones, America itself ceased to exist, when there was nothing but wasteland, we alone on bleak terrain, no yesterdays or tomorrows, only today, and a man beside you to confirm that for now, these moments at least, life continued to exist. That gruff man remains at your side for so long as you live.