I know two veterans of American wars: my father and my brother-in-law. My father survived a year in Korea and came home with shrapnel in his leg and a purple heart. My brother-in-law survived a tour of duty in Vietnam and came home without any visible wounds; he claimed his high school typing class saved his life by putting him in an office instead of in harm’s way.
Although they both survived their wars, they brought home hidden injuries that never healed. My father went to Korea as a shy farm boy from Missouri who played the guitar and loved country music. His time there was terrifying and left him, in my view, with a lingering case of post-traumatic stress disorder. Only now, in his early 80s, has he told us stories about his experiences.
One story that he shared recently involved going on night patrol in the jungles of South Korea. Night patrol meant heading out in single file on a narrow path, providing an easy target for the “chinks” shooting at them from the safety of the darkness and the jungle. They could see and hear you, but you couldn’t see or hear them. (I think my father and his comrades called them “chinks” because they were Chinese, not Korean, and indeed, Chinese soldiers did fight in large numbers in Korea.)
One night the man behind my father was shot and killed. My father was ordered to carry the dead soldier’s body on the return to camp. My dad carried his dead comrade on his back and was so covered with blood that when they made it back to camp, my father’s commanding officer had him stand still and then hosed him off with a garden hose. The next night, my dad went right back on night patrol, the theory being that giving soldiers a break from the horrors of war, even a day off, would just make it harder to go back.
My brother-in-law brought back his own hidden wounds that took decades to manifest, but when they did, they killed him. First it was prostate cancer, then liver cancer, then a liver transplant, and finally, cancer everywhere.
He had no idea that his illnesses had anything to do with Vietnam until a few months before he died, when he took early retirement. A colleague told him to apply for veteran’s benefits and while he was at it, to find out if he’d ever been exposed to Agent Orange. All those cancers, his friend told him, they’re all related to Agent Orange.
My brother-in-law filled out the paperwork and sure enough, he’d been exposed to Agent Orange even though he hadn’t been in battle. He should have been receiving compensation all those years he was sick, but he had good health insurance, and he just didn’t think about it.
My brother-in-law died a month after his 65th birthday, leaving behind my sister and my two nieces.
My father and brother-in-law were both nice boys from small towns in Missouri who went off to war, to do their duty, and they paid the price. They never complained, they just did what they had to do.
I honor them today, and I grieve for what they lost and how they suffered. I honor them and their fellow wounded warriors, the soldiers who survived the fighting but came home with wounds that can’t be healed, not even by time.
