I entered his room. I saw a faded tattoo, a shadow of its former pride, on his forearm. “U. S. Army.” I shook the old man’s hand. “So you were in the Army.” He stared at me then followed my eyes to his arm. He read the tattoo. “I guess I was.”
“World War Two?”
“Maybe.”
“Where were you deployed? Europe? Japan?”
“Europe? France maybe. Pacific…”
I ordered tests and x-rays. Pneumonia. Not bad. We should be able to cure it. I looked at his records. Purple Heart; wounded in action.
I went back in to see him. He stared at me. He’d never seen me before, you see. First time.
I shook his hand… the thumb-to-thumb-type handshake. It’s a man-thing. You shake hands like this, it’s more personal, more respectful than a traditional, polite handshake. It says, ‘You’re special.” Can’t tell you why it’s so; it just is. Just for a second his eyes cleared and the slightest trickle of a smile. Then his look, his face went blank again. “Thank you,” I whispered.
“For what?”
“For that.” I pointed to his tattoo. He didn’t get it.
I need to say when I took his hand, I did it with a thankful reverence. There was no effort on my part to pass myself off as a comrade to this man. He once knew – and sadly has now forgotten – more of bravery than I ever will.
I left him, but his memory held me fast that day. How had he earned his Purple Heart? Had he and some equally courageous buddies locked hands just before jumping waist-deep into a sea riddled with bursting shells and floating bodies; firepower that roiled the sea and would just as impartially roil him? Or did he invade some South Pacific atoll without a name, in some long-forgotten battle front grimly defended by brave Japanese determined to win or to willingly give up their lives trying? Did he fight in a battle forgotten by history – and now by him – the testing place of his courage? Was he scared to death yet bound by his honor to see it through though it cost him his life? The very definition of courage.
He was an Army vet who can no longer recall where or when his devotion was so severely measured. He passed me by on his stretcher heading back to the Veterans’ Center. I smiled and said, “Good-bye, sir; and again, thank you.”
He stared at me uncomprehendingly. I watched this old man leave, for years having suffered the subtle, cumulative subtractions from his self by the hands of an indifferent clock. This worn-out hero in a faltered body no longer remembers the time or the reason he was summoned to risk everything for his way of life. He passed the severest of tests he no longer remembers. I will never know what fears he bested, but I do know that because of his sacrifices then, as with so many other men and women, America is, for the time being at least, the God-blessed land it is.
Don’t forget to look for Lucky’s book of medical stories: “The Oath of Hippocrates.” Available locally and on-line.
By Lucky Garvin
