I posted this last year to honor the Veterans in my life. It has since then won an award. Columbia University's 2013 Student Gold Circle Collegiate Award.
M8. Non-fiction interview1. Kirsten Clark, “5,000 mile man,” Indiana Daily Student, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN;
2. Kate McCullough, “Somalia,” Convergence, Humber College, Toronto, Ontario, Canada;
3. Megan Washausen, “Katy Sullivan,” The Ampersand, Webster University, St. Louis, MO;
CM. Matthew Glowicki, “Growing up together,” Indiana Daily Student, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN;
CM. Lynn Donovan, “The eleventh hour,” Telolith, Seward County Community College, Liberal, KS;
CM. Laura Petro, “Framed for Success,” The Walk, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
What an honor for me, and for my Dad, whom this was written to honor in the first place. Daddy past away April 2005 and needless to say, we miss him very much. So... This is for him and all of those who served in the Armed Forces.
Thank you for keeping us safe and free.
God bless you and protect you always.
“I know I am
going to Heaven
because I have already been to hell, in 1968.”
SSG Donald L Conant, Sr.
Retired Army DAV
Dad sent a surprise
in the mail to each of us kids, but when my brother read it, he had a surprise
for Dad. For months our dad had sat at the computer typing, crying, pacing, and
staring into space. This was no labor of love. It was a confession of his soul.
He wrote about the year he spent in Vietnam.
We knew very
little about that year. All we knew was he had a pathological fear of having a flashback.
At times it was debilitating. My siblings had seen him come home blanch-faced
and mousey because he heard about a buddy “losing it” at a filling station. The
buddy shot several people, killing them, because he thought he saw “gooks.” Loud
noises and closed-in spaces terrified Dad. My sister and I laughed at him for
years. While our brother, Donnie, stayed silent as if he understood.
Donnie hated it
at times, because they couldn’t do the things other fathers and sons did, like
hunting, because Dad couldn’t handle the affects it had on him. He tried once,
I’ll give him that, but when they got into the woods, holding their guns at the
ready, Dad had to stop. He was in tears as he apologized and hurried back to
his truck. They drove home in silence. As soon as they were home, he went to
bed. Donnie didn’t see him for three days. Mom said he was sleeping. But Donnie
wondered what he had done. Still Donnie didn’t blame him.
After Dad typed his
memoirs into the computer, he printed every gut-wrenching word onto tear-apart
track paper, tore the perforated edges off, punched holes in it, and mounted
each set in a black manuscript folder. He autographed them for each of us kids.
At last, we could read the things he refused to tell any of us, his deepest,
darkest secrets. Finally, we would know the causes for his insomnia, why he
drank so much, and the reason why he dove into depression when I married a
Filipino.
Dad had a
comedic style for telling stories, so we expected humor mixed with seriousness,
like watching a war movie. We had no idea what horrors would be revealed in
this manuscript. A lump formed in my throat as I read his dedication.
DEDICATED TO:
My family, who I am sure suffered as others did, that had loved ones in
Vietnam. I love them all and I thank them for their support and understanding.
DLC
I turned the
page and began to read. I laughed and I cried throughout his stories. I
couldn’t put the manuscript down. However, my brother had a very different
reaction.
The words, the
descriptions, the tales were vivid, graphic, and haunting, all the while,
familiar to Donnie. How could they be so familiar to him? He knew this book was
a project, suggested by the V.A. doctors, for Dad to gain control over the
insanity he felt nipping at his heels every waking and sleeping moment.
But, when he
read Chapter Eleven, he had to pick up the phone.
“Dad? I am
reading your book,” Donnie told him. He didn’t know how to tell Dad what he
knew, so he simply said, “You’ve told me these stories before.”
“No, son, I
haven’t told anybody about these things. I just couldn’t talk about it.”
“No, you’re
wrong. You told me these stories. I remember them distinctly.”
Silence crackled
across the phone line.
“How could you
remember?” he asked.
“I don’t know,
but I do. I remember lying in a bed. You wore your straw cowboy hat. It lifted up
as you pressed your head against the side rail. I remember the red indentation the
metal made on your forehead. You talked to me for hours. I think that’s when you
told me these stories—was I dreaming?”
“Oh my god.” Dad’s
voice broke into sobs.
“I wasn’t sure
until I got to Chapter Eleven,” he said. “When I read about the local village
being slaughtered, about the dead people everywhere, and you guys walking in on
the mess.” He hesitated. Should he go on? Dad was already crying. He hadn’t heard
Dad cry too many times in his life. It broke his heart. “Dad, when I read about
the children strung upside down in the trees, their mutilated bodies, their
Asian eye-lids sliced off and the grotesque death stare of each of them, I knew
this was not anything you would talk about, yet I knew the story. How could I
know these stories, Dad, if you didn’t tell them to me?”
He sniffed and
blew his nose.
“Dad? Are you
alright?”
“Son, when you
were ten, you got sick.” He cleared his throat. “You were in a coma. The
doctors told us you were dying. I told them, ‘Look here, I don’t wanna know
what my son died from. I wanna know what’s killing him!’ Those doctors ‘bout
wet themselves, yes-siring me and running
off to figure out what was wrong with you.” He sniffed, and I heard ice clink
against his large plastic cup. He took a long drink. He knew it was RC Cola.
“The nurses were really nice. They told us to talk to you. Even though you were
unconscious, just talk to you. About anything, it didn’t matter. Your mom and I
thought they were crazy, but we were willing to try anything. So I sat down by
your bed, and I talked. I didn’t know if you could hear me or not. Eventually,
I ran out of things to say, and you still didn’t move, so I started talking
about ‘Nam.”
Now Donnie
sniffed. His tears wouldn’t stop flowing. Finally, he knew why he had
empathized with Dad’s fears. He had told
Donnie these stories, and Donnie had remembered. That was my brother’s surprise
for Dad.
Although we
lived in three different states, we were talking about the manuscript within a
week. After Chapter Twenty-One, his final chapter, we understood why Dad
couldn’t carry a gun in the woods. It was too similar to the jungle in Vietnam.
A flashback really could be triggered without warning. After reading about those
mutilated children, we understood why almond-shaped eyes, especially children’s,
put a chill in his heart. We admired his ability to overcome this branded
nightmare for the sake of his two Filipino grandchildren.
Our dad was,
once again, our hero. He had survived a bloody, senseless “police action.” His
memories had been his prisoner of war. Thank God the V.A. doctors had suggested
he write them down. By doing so, he was able to set them free. He was able to
let us know what he had been through. More importantly, he was able to face
what he feared most—what we would think of him. He found out we still loved
him. We did not judge him for what he had done, what he had seen, or what he
did not do.
“Chapter Eleven was
the toughest chapter to write,” he had told us. It required him to stand toe to
toe with the devil and spit in his face. He feared it would break his sanity,
yet he kept pecking the story onto the screen. It was the bravest thing our
father ever did. Well, second bravest. The first was surviving Vietnam, 1968.
Personal note: I love you Daddy! (deceased 4/13/2005) Thank you Veterans. I appreciate and pray for you all the time. Gold Circle Awards
