I'm not to be trusted. Simple as that. I want to be a trustable sort. Sure do. But I don't get all that into payin' attention to the littler things in life. And sometimes have a poor idea of what matters to other people. Maybe 'cause it doesn't put peanut butter on my bread when I'm hungry.
Joe should have known better but he didn't. He was my sister's husband and a veteran of the mess in Korea back in the early '50s.
On my leave before Vietnam he quietly gave me a Sacred Heart of Jesus card that he'd carried during the Korean Conflict. He'd received it from his sainted Irish mother - all Irish mothers bein' saints 'cause their husbands tended to test them on a daily basis - and it might even have been blessed by a priest. His mom was one hundred percent Irish and the Irish love to make their priests work for a living. I don't recall what was said when he pressed it into my hand. But I suppose it had something to do with the card being a talisman that would protect me as it had him.
What could I say? Of course I accepted it. Not that I didn't believe it would protect me. It was more, or at least should have been more, along the line of,
What the hell are you thinking? That's all I need right now. You're giving me something you've carried in your wallet for 19 years, that bears great meaning for you. Do you have any idea how much this thing weighs psychologically? And you're handing it over to me so I can even make it heavier? Crap! Nothing like carrying two generations of war on my back when I'm humping the boonies. If I die with this thing in my wallet, how you gonna feel then, huh? And how will your mother feel if she finds out? And what would it say about me that God didn't care enough to save my sorry ass.
Truth was, my brain said something closer to,
Okie-dokie. Thanks a lot. Hope I don't lose it.
The 'don't lose it' part was there from the get-go and never went away. When I left for Vietnam I now had two things to worry me, don't die and don't lose the card.
So of course I lost it. Could have lost it pretty much anywhere in the Delta, Dong Tam, Moore, the boonies, or even up at Moc Hoa where we were putting in a week helping build a fire support base near the Cambodian border. Anyhow, at Moc Hoa I discovered it was gone when I was doing my weekly wallet check for Jesus.
Moc Hoa was a hoot. When we weren't stringing concertina wire we were running patrols, burning our bodies top to bum in the swimming hole the Corps of Engineers had carved into a rice paddy, or sitting around at night shooting the shit, hoping we wouldn't be over run 'cause we were out of artillery range. It was there four of us realized we'd all been drunk in the same hole in the wall bar. Oddly enough, the bar was called The Pit. And it sure was one.
Gotta admit I was bummed out when I realized Jesus had flown the coop. And that was before I'd even heard the phrase 'bummed out'. I quickly put it out of my mind knowing I had nine months left in country to make up a good story,
Yeah, we were in this fire fight, see? And I was target numero uno for this VC with a machine gun. Bullets cracked past by me like a hiveful of angry bees with death on their minds. Finally, he got the range figured out. Zeroed in and I was a goner for sure. But then the Sacred Heart you gave me crawled out of my wallet and started deflecting bullets, right, left, and straight back at their godless faces. Must have knocked away a hundred or so before Charley ran put of rounds and high tailed it out of there. Next thing I knew, the card turns into a white dove, flies up to the top of a nipa palm, and disappears. Poof! Yeah, that's what happened. Must've 'cause there's no way I could make up something like that.
Don't know if that would have been the story I'd have gone with but it was better than most.
After our week's vacation at Moc Hoa we flew back to Moore. A day later, on my way to the bunker me, Weasel, and Papa-san occupied at night, there, right in front of me on the ground, half buried in the dirt, was the Sacred Heart. Maybe not a miracle, but it got me wondering.
Of course, a week or two later I lost it again. No idea where it went. If you ever take a trip to Vietnam, I know I won't, but if you do, check out the tops of any nipa palms you might pass while cruising through the Delta. If you spy any white doves, let me know via the comments column for this blog.
Yes, I did lose the Sacred Heart twice. And found it once. Took me a couple of decades to let Joe know. He laughed it off.
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