The Soldier's Story

The Soldier’s Story

Marvin leaned against the brick wall and muttered to himself. He had just had his money stolen again by some of the thugs who infested this part of the city. They were like termites in rotten buildings, he thought bitterly, devouring everything with no thought for what it had cost someone else. And the city was rotting. Too many people had forgotten. To add insult to injury, the young men had kicked his metal bowl across the street.

“At least, they didn't get my notebook,” he grunted, pulling a little black book out from beneath his pants. He had hidden it the moment he spied the gang moving in his direction, like a dirty tide picking up the debris along the shore. He rubbed his hands over the black leather cover of his book, now creased and cracked with age. The notebook had been a gift from his mother many years before, as he was about to ship out for Vietnam. He recalled the last conversation he had had with his girlfriend before leaving.

“What’s that thing for?” she had asked, pointing to the book.

“I’m going to write down what happens to me,” he had replied.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to forget, Angie, that’s why. So I don’t lose who I am. I want to be able to look back and see who I was.”

“Who you were? What, you think you’re going to come back a different person?”

“Who knows? I may not come back at all, and then you can read it and know what happened.”

“Don’t say that, Marvin. Of course you’ll come back.”

Marvin thumbed through the pages, written in his once fine hand. He stopped on a page near the beginning and read the words. “Got off the plane at Da Nang Air Base and got my assignment. I won’t be here long, or so they tell me. Tomorrow or the next day I’m going in country. Into the jungle, where the enemy is.” He flipped a few more pages and read, “Why am I here? I sure don’t know. Everybody says I’m here to kill the enemy, but maybe he will kill me. And who is the enemy? I don’t want to kill another poor son of a bitch, too scared to shit and wondering how he got here. If the Cong came over to my country, I’d fight. Then I’d kill the sons of bitches.”

Many of Marvin’s fellow soldiers had been killed and the body bags had been going out on the choppers. Marvin wrote, “Sometimes, a guy is just walking across the compound, here in the fire-camp, and—whop! He gets it from a sniper a mile away in the jungle. Most of us don’t go out much until a patrol comes up. Why take the chance? We’ve had our fill of this land, the leeches, mosquitos, snakes, spiders, and rats as big as pigs. And the black fungus-eating your toes from being wet all the time. Warm water to drink and cold water to bathe in—if you do that. Some of the guys write home about how they’re having such a great time, the wonderful accommodations, fresh air, travel to beautiful destinations, exercise. It’s all bull shit, but they can’t tell Mom and Pop the way it is here. We try to get out of patrols when we can and volunteer for jobs, especially when we’re short—less than 99 days of our 365 before going home. Don’t have to go out at all when we only have a wake up call left. That’s 14 days in this outfit. When a guy is under fifty, he struts a little, and at twenty-five he’s like royalty, but at fourteen he’s paranoid. Because everyone knows if you’re short, you’re more likely to eat it. And the First Sargent gives him all the duty that no one likes to pull, like burning shit. Because we’ve got to cover his ass and do his patrol. One day, it will be my turn, if I live that long.”

Marvin went out on patrol. The squad was walking in a line and the guy in front of him had his M-16 safety off with his finger on the trigger. “That’s common practice,” Marvin wrote in his notebook later. “All hell might break loose and a guy is fumbling with the safety while the Cong is trying to ventilate his ass. Well, the poor bastard stumbled on a slight rise and drilled the guy in front of him in the back—zipped him right up the middle. Dead instantly. No one blamed him, no one said a word. We were all silently thanking God it wasn’t us. A few of the guys were shaking their heads and one was crying. The guy who did the shooting—his name is Derek—dropped the gun and started crying, trying to explain. But the squad leader put a hand on his arm and shook his head. He sat us all down right there, while he kept watch on the trees not far away. Of course, the old man had to write it up for the record, but the parents of the dead soldier will never know the truth. The incident will be chalked up to the Cong. It looks like Derek is going home, but no one envies him.”

One time Marvin remembered something he had read once: “He who kills a man kills all men.” He knew that he was guilty, and he was so depressed that he wanted to go out right then and invite the sniper in the jungle to shoot him. But he didn’t.

Marvin closed the notebook. Who was I? he thought. Who am I? It seemed that he had lost himself over there. He had looked at the faces of his fellow soldiers—into the deep, filmy recesses of their hollow eyes—and he had seen glimpses of himself. But the confident, happy guy had disappeared, as surely as if he had dropped into the ocean from San Francisco to Da Nang.

One day Marvin was short. He could not believe it, hadn’t thought that he would make it this far. A little later he was crossing the ocean, and then he was sitting on a plane from San Francisco to New York. It still felt very strange. One day he had been standing in the jungles of Vietnam and two days later he stood on the sidewalk of New York. He was not ready for this. Angie was not at the airport to meet him, but he went to her house anyway.

“Oh, Marvin, I’m glad that you made it home, but I’ve got a new boyfriend. I just couldn’t wait around for you, you know?”

“Did you read my letters?”

“No, I’m sorry Marvin. I read some of them, but…it was so upsetting. I just couldn’t finish. And look, what were you doing over there, anyway?”

“What do you mean? I was trying to stay alive! If you had read my letters, you would know.”

“I know, but were you…I mean, did you see any women or children being killed by soldiers? I hear that happened.”

“What you mean is, am I a baby killer. That is what you’re asking me, isn’t it?”

“No! I know you only did what you had to do, Marvin. It was terrible.”

“You’re telling me? Did you forget I was drafted?”

“No baby, I didn’t forget.”

Marvin was put into group therapy with other vets. He got a job and lost it, and then a series of jobs that he could not hold down. Years later, he found out what his problem was; they had given it a fancy name: “post traumatic stress syndrome.” They said that he had been sprayed with something over there called “Agent Orange.” It did not mean much to him until he was diagnosed with cancer. He began receiving monthly checks after that. At first he spent the money, but later he left most of it in the bank. He made do on the street with whatever he could find, or what someone would give him. One day he went into the bank and asked how much he had. He asked for a round sum in a cashier’s check and pocketed the rest. He took the little slip of paper and inserted it securely into the back pages of his notebook. Marvin always asked people to read his book. “If you read it, you can have what you find in the pages,” he would say. Most people would look at him oddly, smile with embarrassment, and shake their heads. But no one read the book.

Marvin came out of his reverie and got up to fetch his bowl, before ambling away. It seemed to him that everyone had forgotten. Now, no one was left to remember.

Marvin’s cancer took a turn for the worst and he found himself in a hospital bed. Next to him was a veteran who had diabetes. A woman came in to visit him. When she smiled at Marvin, he saw the kindest face he had ever seen. They talked a while and Marvin learned that her name was Nancy and she was going to wait for her father to have dialysis. Her husband, a Marine, had recently died in Afghanistan, leaving the family in danger of losing their home if they could not make the final payment.

Marvin held out his book. “I wrote this while I was in Nam,” he said. “Would you like to read it?”

Nancy smiled sweetly and hesitated. Marvin was expecting another rejection, but she reached out and took the book. “Sure,” I’ll read your book.”

“You can have what you find in the back,” Marvin said.

Nancy looked confused, but opened the book.

“I’m just going to rest,” Marvin said, closing his eyes. When he awakened, Nancy was standing by the door, waiting.

“Did you read my book?”

She nodded. “And I want to thank you Marvin. My generation cannot understand what happened there. I’d like to have it published.”

“What?”

“I work for a publisher.”

“That’s…that’s wonderful! Did you take my gift?”

“You mean, your bookmark?” She smiled.

“Yeah. It’s yours.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Look, I’m not going to walk out of this hospital. It would mean a lot to me if you took it.” They talked longer and Nancy finally agreed, with tears in her eyes.

“At last, someone understands me,” Marvin sighed.

“Oh yes. I know who you are, Marvin. A very brave and good man.”

At Marvin’s funeral only Nancy, her father, and a few other veterans were there, but that would have satisfied him. After the Color Guard passed by and before his three-gun salute, Nancy read a passage from his book, standing up by the casket, draped with the flag.

“They say that soldiers fight because their country calls them. It’s patriotism. I don’t know about that. I came here because I had no choice, I was drafted. I did not want to kill anyone. But once I got here, I found myself fighting to keep my buddies alive. I came to understand that I am also fighting for the people back home. I don’t want them to ever have to die in a place like this. My hope is that one day, if enough of us die, someone will say, ‘No more.’ And they’ll make peace—a lasting peace. I don’t know if that’s possible, but it’s got to be. Mother’s boys like me can’t keep killing other mother’s boys because some fat politicians want a war. We’ve got to say ‘No’ sometime.”

They gave Marvin’s flag to Nancy. And she made sure that they printed his book. Marvin had finally gotten his first wish. As for the second wish...