Recently I met a fine gentlemen, Calvin, who has been an activist since the anti-war resistance of Vietnam. He told me about folks he knew who served and folks who refused to serve. It brought back many flashbacks I had of my son who was on the same path Calvin was on for many years, beginning with Vietnam resistance movements.
Also, I kept remembering some events from when I was 10 years old in Chicago, and we invited World War II soldiers and sailors from local bases to our home for Sunday dinner just about every week for a few years. They would sit around the table and talk about their experiences. Some were 18-year-olds and they were all excited about the joy and privilege of defending the red, white and blue. They wanted to be heroes. They wanted to save us all on the home front. So we waved flags and cheered them and counted with pride all the service men we had bonded with over a pot of pork and beans at our dinner table. (The big joke was to find the small piece of pork that was in the pot — meat was rationed, expensive and hard to find.)
But a few of the men had been overseas and were back to tell their stories. One of the men, Carl, had lost his leg at Iwo Jima and the young recruits still in basic training at Great Lakes Naval Station or Fort Dearborn Army Training Camp asked him how it felt to be a hero.
Well, Carl remained very serious and almost tearful as he confessed that he had gone off to war with the same spirit they now had, but it soon changed. The very first day that he stood on the beach with his gun in his hand and saw women and children fleeing for their life and was ordered to fire. He only felt the warm stream of urine as it ran down his leg and he lifted his gun to follow orders. He wondered why he couldn’t just throw the gun on the ground and run. He heard himself whisper, "Mommy, where are you?"
I remember this story so well because I was a bed-wetter until I was 12. The daily humiliation was unforgettable. When Carl told his story that day, I connected. I understood that he had gone into battle as a humbled person instead of a shouting, laughing hero. I knew his moment of truth had been painful.
So the day I finished typing my notes about my visit with Calvin, and I heard the whistle of the trains going by here in Portland, I remembered my dear son stepping in front of the train because he just wanted “to quit” this horrific struggle. He was so discouraged that so many folks wouldn’t listen to him as he worked with anti-war movements. I couldn’t sleep — and at 4 a.m., I jumped out of bed and went to my computer and wrote the following poem.
How does it feel to know
You’re a college football hero
But you’re missing a leg and
Don’t give a damn who wins the next game?
How does it feel to hold on to your gun
And look down at a woman and child
Covered with blood that drips from you
On their faces like red tears?
How does it feel to know
You should wish you were dead
But instead you’re alive without
The courage to live another day?
How does it feel to come home
And be called a hero and
Stand in the square facing the crowd
While they pin on a medal you don’t want to wear?
How does it feel to know
You have to get through one day at a time
Watching the clock, waiting for a chance
To get home to your closet and sip some wine?
Who do you blame when all you see
Is your friends and family
Believing the lies
That sent you there, where everyone dies?
How does it feel to beg them to please
Listen to your story and believe you
'Cause you were there
And you know what is true?
