EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 SURVIVORS

An old friend called me last week. Well over a half-century ago we had been college roommates for a spell. He dropped out of college because, as he put it, “Inertia overtook me.” He fell under the spell of an army recruiter named “Sergeant Goforth.” ( I am not making this up.) This super-salesman sold my friend on the idea of enlisting with a goal of becoming an officer and then a Green Beret.

He made it, and served a tour working with a group of Montagnards in Vietnam. He went through so much training that I had finished my tour there before he ever left the states. When he returned stateside, the Army told him they didn’t need captains that had finished their tour, but he had to fill out the remaining time of his commitment. That resulted in some sad stories for him and other detainees at Fort Hood. But he survived.

The reason for his call was to tell me that he had received a bad medical report with an estimated life expectancy of no more than two or three years. He is currently using oxygen as a medical assistance.

This from a former Green Beret?

That’s a hard pill to swallow. My first question was, “Agent Orange?”

No, years of extensive woodworking without using a mask.

Not service related? Not directly, but maybe. A military experience, particularly one that included a tour in a war zone, tends to make a survivor feel impervious to common, everyday dangers. And though the VA denies most claims, with good reason, those with Agent Orange hovering over them can’t shake the feeling that, at the least, it may serve as a catalyst. It is like an invisible demon, placed above one by a fickle fate to be called into action when we least expect it, a fitting tool for a country that never forgave those who served in that miserable little war.

At any rate, somewhere on the east coast of America, there is an elderly man sitting in public with an oxygen cylinder by his side. Young ones pass by, nudge each other, and manage to hold their giggles until he is out of hearing.

They couldn’t imagine. They just couldn’t imagine.