My Last Story
Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 6:11 pm
I rarely talked about my father. I don't know why I didn't because he is very much why I am who I am today.
My father was a military man for years. Vietnam two tours. One story he told me when I was a little girl -- he called me "Princess Summer, Fall, Winter Spring" and would tell me stories about his life or about his experience in the service or the scumbags he went after as a special agent for the government after he retired from military service. I saw my father weep only one time and it was when we went to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C. I watched as he gingerly touched the names (not just names! They were his men!) with his fingers as his wedding band (that he'd worn all through Vietnam as my mother waited for him to return) glistened in the glow of the late Fall sun.
The story that stuck with me and created me is this one:
He had watched the men that served under him die and felt each loss as his own. He knew their wives, their mothers, and their families would grieve and shriek as they knew some of these young men had died in this war that old men in Washington had sent them to serve in as they fell not for honor or liberty, rather, for political maneuverings that did not take into account the human side of the battlefield. He was bitter that these men died for reasons that no one could clearly articulate and that they were not seen as warriors for honor -- no, just men to die in a senseless war that he could not even understand anymore.
He found on a dead enemy soldier a bound book that had the man's pictures and drawings (they were stunningly beautiful) of the different seasons and his memories of his life. My father took that from this dead man's body and took it as his own. He knew not why he did that, yet, he did. He later returned this to Vietnam when he went back a year ago. Anyway, this book was with him only a day when he was given the command to shell an enemy hospital.
He refused that direct order.
He was threatened with court martial.
He refused again.
He was threatened again.
He refused again.
He refused.
He would not shell that hospital. Everyone knew there were Viet Cong and weapons being housed there, yet, he refused to shell that hospital.
My father left that war a war hero. He has the medals to prove what he did.
Yet, what created the hero in him is not in the medals or what his official record says. He has the ability to say he refused a direct order that made him my hero, though.
He told me all my youth to question everyone and everything. He, unfortunately, found out I took that to heart as a teenager when I began to question him.
At the end of the day it's just us and we live with what we did or did not do. Who we hurt or how we live. Whether we take orders, obey our conscious, or can live with doing the things we've done.
I was never taught about "truth" or about religious fanciful notions. I was taught by a man that held life and death in his hands that we must be careful how we navigate through this world, for at the end of the day, it's just us and our actions (that no one else may know of) that create who we are. No medal. No glory. Only the quiet knowledge that we can live with ourselves with our actions and our behaviors.
I'm proud to be my father's daughter.
My father was a military man for years. Vietnam two tours. One story he told me when I was a little girl -- he called me "Princess Summer, Fall, Winter Spring" and would tell me stories about his life or about his experience in the service or the scumbags he went after as a special agent for the government after he retired from military service. I saw my father weep only one time and it was when we went to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C. I watched as he gingerly touched the names (not just names! They were his men!) with his fingers as his wedding band (that he'd worn all through Vietnam as my mother waited for him to return) glistened in the glow of the late Fall sun.
The story that stuck with me and created me is this one:
He had watched the men that served under him die and felt each loss as his own. He knew their wives, their mothers, and their families would grieve and shriek as they knew some of these young men had died in this war that old men in Washington had sent them to serve in as they fell not for honor or liberty, rather, for political maneuverings that did not take into account the human side of the battlefield. He was bitter that these men died for reasons that no one could clearly articulate and that they were not seen as warriors for honor -- no, just men to die in a senseless war that he could not even understand anymore.
He found on a dead enemy soldier a bound book that had the man's pictures and drawings (they were stunningly beautiful) of the different seasons and his memories of his life. My father took that from this dead man's body and took it as his own. He knew not why he did that, yet, he did. He later returned this to Vietnam when he went back a year ago. Anyway, this book was with him only a day when he was given the command to shell an enemy hospital.
He refused that direct order.
He was threatened with court martial.
He refused again.
He was threatened again.
He refused again.
He refused.
He would not shell that hospital. Everyone knew there were Viet Cong and weapons being housed there, yet, he refused to shell that hospital.
My father left that war a war hero. He has the medals to prove what he did.
Yet, what created the hero in him is not in the medals or what his official record says. He has the ability to say he refused a direct order that made him my hero, though.
He told me all my youth to question everyone and everything. He, unfortunately, found out I took that to heart as a teenager when I began to question him.
At the end of the day it's just us and we live with what we did or did not do. Who we hurt or how we live. Whether we take orders, obey our conscious, or can live with doing the things we've done.
I was never taught about "truth" or about religious fanciful notions. I was taught by a man that held life and death in his hands that we must be careful how we navigate through this world, for at the end of the day, it's just us and our actions (that no one else may know of) that create who we are. No medal. No glory. Only the quiet knowledge that we can live with ourselves with our actions and our behaviors.
I'm proud to be my father's daughter.