David Mitchell
Tim (and Mary Margaret),
First, a bit of housekeeping, Your posts will NEVER become too much for us to listen to. I have enjoyed every single one of them and I hereby take back every single, foul-mouthed, dirty, rotten, nasty comment I ever said about you - even the one's behind your back. (lol)
In fact, it is myself who has been hogging the "airwaves" lately. I find writing addictive and words are magic (if used for some reasonably good purpose). AND after all, why should we be apologizing when it's really Janie's fault. She set up this cursed (read: wonderful) forum. IT'S HER FAULT MAN. SHE DID IT!
Moving backwards in the conversation, I too just saw "Hacksaw" (haven't seen the other one yet). It is of course a "hollywood" film - albeit well done - (beware the graphic violence!). But the actual story of the man is quite moving. I have been a sap for a heroic story ever since I first heard about David and Goliath.
"Lord, just help me get one more" is a line in the film that resonates in my heart.
But your shared conversation (her note) about the two human acts - First: serving in a way that puts one's self in harm's way for another's benefit or protection, and Second; receiving an acknowlegement for that service. These are two powerful instincts of the human spirit. To serve, to protect and defend, are always worhty of acknowledgement. And I add my own gratitude to hers for you and all of the rest of the guys from our class. This Veteran's day seems to have struck a nerve for all of us who have just survived a bitter "noise" in our sysem of democracy (and I find myself hurting, wanting, dismayed - I thought we were better than this)
But I think Mary Margaret's beautiful acknowledgement seems to take on an extra layer of importance to our age group becuase of the bitterness we all came home to. A bitteness that caused one of our clasmates to greet me at a holiday party in late 1969 (at Juilie Carpenter's house I think, 6 days after being shot down in a rice paddy) with one of the nastiest insults I have ever received. And a bitterness that caused a young man to spit on me (and two Navy guys I was boarding a plane with on my way home) at the San Francisco airport in 1970.
I have only recently managed to climb out of the "slavery" of PTSD and see life through different eyes. I held a reunion a few years ago out on nearby Hilton Head and spent four days with a group of guys I flew with and hadn't seen in 45 years. It was magic! Sort of a love in. We could listen to, (AND HEAR) one another like no one else can. It was gratifying in a way I had not experienced since coming home. We were giving each other the "sacrament" of affirmation - something very lacking in my life. My heart began to stir. And then last March I finally bowed (after ten years) to the urgings of an old buddy from Denver and attended my first "MARKED MEN FOR CHRIST" retreat. Wow! Just Wow! I was able to throw all the old "junk" away (and there were truckloads of it) and start over with a new view of life. It was "life-changing" for a guy who had grown up under what my father (a very reverent Cathilic) often referred to as the "Vatican Control Syndrome" of rules for the sake of rules, obligation, guilt, fear, and shame. Sorrry, but those are not HIS promises of joy and victory and freedom.
I do however have some differences from your experience. I did think I was doing "something for good" (I think those were your words). I was raised in a very religious and patriotic home (maybe too much so at times), and I had also been exposed to my father's Air Force reunions (he was a B-29 Flight Surgeon in Asia and the Pacific during '44 adn '45), and I had been "imprinted" with their fascinating "avaition" stories fom India, China, and finally Tinian.
But I would be lying if I said those were my real motives. It was simply about my life-long craving, flying! I had asked to join the student flying club at the U. of Denver but my father forbid me to until my grades improved. I HATED college that first year! I had no more business being there at 18 than joining a traveling circus. So I came up with the clever scheme to over rule my dad - deiberately flunk out! GENIUS! I started skipping all my classes and bought a book about handicapping and odds-making for horses, and started going to the dog track north of Denver (yes, bettting illegally under age). And I came home the summer of 1967, 19 years old, flunked out, healthy, and thus "4A" in the draft. I knew I had to choose something quick before they chose me. I found the Army's "Warrant Officer/ Rotary Wing" program the only aviation option for a non-college graduate. I could not sign up fast enough.
So my tour and a half in Vinh Long was a crazy period of flying the little "Loach" Scout helicopter in a "hunter-killer" team in the Delta. Without boring you with the details, it was as bizarre a mission as ever concieved and pulled us close together as brothers. So my experience was full of both the wonderfully rewarding, and sometimes the horribly tragic. I can agree with you some of the time when you say you hated it. There were times when it made me sick. But I also disagree for the times that it gave me a special sense of "brotherhood" under stress. Absurd as it sounds, I LOVED flying this crazy mission. There is something about the "rush" of living on the edge that is impossible to explain.
Whe you said some of us learned lessons no one should learn, I would agree and disagree. But I hope we all learned that life goes on, and it is a gift to cherrish and share and enjoy. (Like holding high school reunions -thanks again Janie and Clare - wow it was fun!)
Finally, I would agree with your statement about guys feeling bad about not going - like they had missed something, or shirked their duty. They did what their conscience led them to do and no one can do any better than that. I have even partially resolved my animosity toward the guys who "ran" for the border, but I have no sympathy for the insults and the taunts. Forgiveness yes, sympathy, no.
Tim, (and all the rest of our group) "You numba one G.I."
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