“Old men start ‘em and
young men fight ‘em”
- Many renditions
“Hi,” I said. “I
heard you guys were part of the Vietnam Veterans Association.”
I had just approached a group of men sitting at the
breakfast table at the Hilton El Conquistador Resort in Tucson, Arizona –
summer of 2002.
It was the last day of a spine conference, and some folk
from the organization for whom I had spoken were eating a bite before the final
sessions began. Someone at my table
mentioned the fellows a cross the room were part of a Vietnam veterans group
that would be starting their conference on the following day. Never the wallflower, I thought I would say
hi.
“My name is Ted, and although I haven’t done much with the
veterans groups, I thought I would come over and say hello.”
“I don’t know where you all served, but I was a ‘Spec 5’ in
the First Aviation Brigade in Vung Tau…1969-‘70.”
For a few moments they just looked at me and said nothing…
Memory trigger…
This began at the bank earlier in the week, when Molly and I
were changing some accounts around. I
don’t do much with the finances in my family…I have always believed one should
let the person with the appropriate skill set manage the things they know best. Molly?
Well, she trained as an engineer and then did an accounting degree with
a CPA certification…
I thought, in the early days, for the briefest of
milliseconds, I could help with the finances of the household – you know
collaborate as a team, but it was clear the approach of rounding up to the
nearest dollar in my checkbook as I had done when I was single guy would not
play as a ‘team sport’ – Molly handles ALL things financial!
Molly learned early in the game that developing a personal
relationship with bankers is essential for so many things. Over the years, she
has become expert in cultivating banking people with whom she has worked. In addition to being a smart thing to do, she
has gained some good friends in the process.
Adam D. is our current banker, and this week because I needed
to be there in person to execute some documents, we met for the first
time. It turns out he was a delightful
young man…chatty…friendly…AND it was clear he and Molly had a well-oiled yearlong
relationship.
It turns out he was a veteran of six years and had taken
three tours to Afghanistan/Iraq during his time in the military. Sometimes getting banking things done takes a
little time with ‘waiting spaces,’ between signatures, so we had a few moments to get to know one another.
Adam had been a plumber in the military, a bartender and a
banker in civilian life. He was in his
early thirties and in spite of his beard he had a youthful appearance and an
open nature that was compelling. His
eyes, however, told a different story…they were windows to his soul that had
recorded things in the hard disks of his mind that took some years of
counseling to talk through… post traumatic stress? Yes sir! When he spoke about this, ‘the rooms
of my mind’ got silent as the closed vault doors of the bank in which we were
seated – no one in his small office, but he and I.
There is a brother/sisterhood in the men and women who have
served this country in military conflict…a bridge over which those who have not
had that experience, are unable to cross.
A ‘knowing’…a kind of unseen set of tentacles reaching from the
unconsciousness of one to the other, and regardless of one’s life experience or
circumstance of the moment, touching something deep…something unspoken.
I liked this young man right away, and I think he liked me.
The story…
In the course of the conversation I said, “You know I had
this experience with a group of guys here in Tucson a little over a decade ago,
long before we moved here.”
I began…
“Hi,” I said. “I
heard you guys were part of the Vietnam Veterans Association.”
“My name is Ted, and although I haven’t done much with the
veterans groups, I thought I would come over and say hello.”
“I don’t know where you all served, but I was a ‘Spec 5’ in
the First Aviation Brigade in Vung Tau…1969-‘70.”
For a few moments they just looked at me and said nothing…
It was a little strange.
Then, without a word, one of the fellows from across the
table got up, walked around to me, put out his hand and looked me straight in
the eye.
“Welcome home,” he said as only one who knew could. “I’m John S.” He then gave me his rank, where
and when he served in Vietnam.
As he was finishing, a second man silently got up and walked
around the table extending his hand.
“Welcome home,” he gently said, giving his name and the particulars of
his service in that far off land.
There were six men at that table, and each of them, ‘one by
one,’ stood from their seats, came to me and repeated the words that none of us
had heard when we returned from that distant place where none of us wanted to be – to
the “…land of the free and the home of the brave.” Truth be told, I had never heard them from
anyone other than my parents when they held their only son, safely home, in
their arms – until that day…it had been 32 years and change.
Everything gets
recorded…
I am certain these men had made a habit of touching that
vacant and hungry spot they knew to be in the hearts of other veterans…the spot
covered over by time and circumstance until its presence no longer anywhere in
sight…the spot buried in the land of Oz – into the unresolved clutter of “…it
is what it is…”
Yeah, I’m pretty certain this was not the first time they had
done this for a comrade in arms…and yet…and yet, when those words were spoken, those
‘knowing eyes’ engaged mine, and hands encircled mine…it was these men who touched
that spot – that spot that had for so many years longed to be acknowledged…it
was these knowing men who provided a kind of closure for which I cannot find
words.
To be frank, there was not a dry eye in the seven – six of
them and me – from that heartfelt connection.
Back to the bank…
I have thought of this story from time to time over the years,
and told it a time or two, BUT the morning at the Bank with Adam was the first
time I had shared it with another Veteran…a young man with whom I shared a
common bond. To be frank, neither of us
had dry eyes.
“Thanks for your service,” is a common phrase for our
veterans in this day and time, and while I am sure it is a sincere gesture on
the part of those that say it…there is a certain intimacy…a rich and deeply
felt sense of fraternity and appreciation for the words spoken by those
Veterans on that morning, in that restaurant, at that hotel in Tucson in 2002.
I looked across the desk at this young man…
“Welcome home Adam…”
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