Hidden Relics of a Reluctant Hero's Past

Some of you know that we lost my dad a few days before Thanksgiving. Mom and I have been going through some of Dad's belongings, and we discovered a letter Dad received in 1946. I had a strong feeling we would find medals or something related to his service in World War II. Mom had never seen this document in all the 64 years she and Dad were married. 

Like most WW II vets, Dad spoke very little of his contributions. The letter comes from his duty in Occupied Japan, where he was part of a bomb and mine disposal unit. Prior to his time in Japan, he had been in the unspeakably bloody, 35-day Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. At the time Dad received this letter, he was 20 years old.

Job well done, Dad. We miss you.

Is there a reluctant hero in your family?

HEADQUARTERS I CORPS

Office of the Ordnance Officer

APO 301 (Kyoto, Honshu)

25 May 1946

Subject:                    Letter of Appreciation.

To:                           Charles C. Bundick, Pfc, #xxxxx,

                                United States Marine Corps.

                I wish to express my appreciation for your splendid performance of duty while engaged in disposal of explosive ordnance in Japan. During your service with units under First Corps, you assisted in the successful disposition of numerous stores of characteristically hazardous Japanese explosives and munitions, much of which was in a deteriorated and extra-sensitive condition. Your capable assistance was in many forms. You aided in the dumping of ordnance at sea, the destruction of dud U.S. high explosive and incendiary bombs, the burning of bulk explosive powders and pyrotechnics, and the classification of explosive ordnance at widely dispersed targets. Each of these was vital to the overall success of the disposal program, and your part in that task was well done.

                Your activities, marked by a ready willingness to undertake all assignments and a faithful devotion to duty, materially aided in the successful elimination of the Japanese war potential. Your excellent service has reflected the highest credit on yourself and the United States Marine Corps.

A.      G.  STONE

Colonel, Ord. Dept.

Ordnance Officer.

Virginity Lost

“I miss my virginity.”

That was Dylan, a 25 year old student in our American Lit II class at a community college in North Carolina, where I’ve been an instructor for a number of years.

No, Dylan wasn’t speaking of the kind of virginity you may first imagine.

Near a military base, we have many vets of both genders in our classes, most of them logging in multiple combat tours. Dylan has been on three combat tours in Iraq, and is a single dad now working on his associate degree.

What prompted Dylan’s statement was the class discussion of a line from Kurt Vonnegut’s 1969 novel, Slaughterhouse Five. In the story, Mary O’Hare, the wife of one of Vonnegut’s World War II army buddies, has just blasted Vonnegut for planning to write a book about the war. The source of her anger is asleep upstairs in footie pajamas—her young children.

You were babies, she growls at Vonnegut, and yet I know you’ll write the book as if you were men. You weren’t men; you weren’t John Wayne or Frank Sinatra, she hisses. You were children like our kids asleep upstairs. You’ll glorify war in your book, glamorize it, pretend you were big brawny men when you fought it, and people will keep fighting wars forever.

She hates Vonnegut for the book she believes he’ll write.

Sitting at Mary’s kitchen table, Vonnegut surprises Mary. He swiftly agrees with her that he and his pal, O’Hare, were children, in fact were “virgins,” when they fought in Germany. 

Our American Lit class discusses the meaning of the word “virgin” in this context—that it doesn’t refer to sexual virginity but to the innocence of teenagers who have yet to fight their first battle.

Dylan pondered this discussion for a few seconds. Then he stated the line above that deserves repeating-- “I miss my virginity.”

The hair on my neck stood up. His terse comment chilled the stuffy classroom. Some of the other combat veterans nodded.

Dylan has been my student in other classes. He’s smart, no doubt about that. But he’s more than smart. He’s perceptive, analytical, and insightful. He’s wise.

He has been a warrior for us, the best kind of warrior. Sometimes I wonder how many U. S. citizens know, care, or approach understanding what our warriors have done for us.

Dylan probably won’t even mind me adding that I know he can be gentle, although I wouldn’t announce that to a crowd if I ran into him at a local pub on a Saturday night. He is confident, not arrogant, not the macho stereotype of the warrior. I’ll go further. I admire him, and the other men and women like him in my classes.

What they have seen and experienced in Iraq or Afghanistan I can’t come close to imagining, even though I watch the nightly news five nights out of seven. The conflicts that I see in sound bites, they lived in 3-D, 24/7.

Now they’re looking at me, for Pete’s sake, standing here hoping I have something to teach them. They are so eager to learn that they lean forward in their uncomfortable plastic chairs. They are my students, but I look up to them. They humble me.

Dylan is unique, but he is also just one of many warriors among us. He is the warrior who comes home from battle, makes a good life for himself, his family, his community.

He lost his virginity for us.

He misses it, and that is part of what makes him the man he is. 

The Long, Long War

 Will* sits across from my desk, trembling from head to toe. He looks very young, but I figure he’s at least 23 since he says he’s been out of high school for five years. Will has an intelligent, devoted wife who’s applying to grad school and a 3-year old son. Tall and thin, he has thick, light brown hair and piercing blue eyes.

Will’s wife, Sandra, my former student, came by earlier in the week to tell me her husband is upset about his paper. He hasn’t slept in days.

He’s done two combat tours and survived, yet he’s worried about his response paper for British Lit.

Sandra says, “Mrs. Bruce, can you do something? I keep telling him he’s smart, he’s a good writer. He just needs to get a rough draft down on paper.”

Sandra and I discuss strategies to help her husband’s writer’s block. She says she’ll try to get him to come see me.

Will is in my office two days later. I’m glad he came; he’s motivated, sincere.  But he is in constant motion.  I’m trying to ignore it.

I can’t say I’ve ever seen a man so restless. I’m vaguely aware that I’m in denial about what is going on with Will.

I try to reassure him. His paper looks great; he’s done a fine job with Blake and Coleridge. I think: Why is he trembling? Is it espresso? Red Bull? Was he like this before the war? He is apologetic, saying that in high school he didn’t take so long, worry so much over his papers.

While I’m talking with Will, my officemate Amber* is finishing up her conversation with a muscular young student in a black t-shirt. A loud talker, Jake’s articulate, with an impressive vocabulary. They’re discussing the draft of his argument paper. Our office is small, and I can’t help listening a little, distracting me for a moment from Will’s jitters.

Jake must’ve written about his battles with the VA; Amber is telling him it’s good to be passionate in his paper, but maybe some of the language, the tone, is a bit too strong for a college argument. He shouldn’t use words like “idiotic,” or “foolish.”

Jake has hearing loss from the war, and the VA says the damage is not from his time in the military, despite all evidence to the contrary.

“I went into the military with perfect hearing, and I came out with hearing loss. They say it has nothing to do with the guns and the IED’s. I’m 24—where else did I get hearing loss?”

Jake is mad about the runaround he’s getting, but with effort, he’s contained. Amber is mad, but self-possessed, professional, making the best of a teachable moment. I’m getting mad, too, and not at the students in my office. There’s another emotion trying to escape from my chest. I’m not sure what the other emotion is. I clench my jaw.

Will glances at Jake, but without expression. Will talks a little louder, so I can hear him over the unintentionally loud guy with the hearing loss.

We continue our conversation about the poetry analysis paper. I may be repeating myself when I tell Will he’s a good writer, not to over-think the assignment. He rises to go. His hand is dry, warm as he shakes my hand, his grip strong but not overbearing. He’s still shaky.

He leaves, but my brain is roiling. Once again I have seen what few Americans ever see and rarely concern themselves with, even if they watch Brian Williams on NBC every night.

I’ve got to do something. So I plan a blog entry, trying to avoid a harsh feeling of futility. Of sinking, sucking, slippery despair.

Trying to find some way to be a witness, to give a tribute, to define and contain something that is amorphous, monstrous. Something that Will is working to conquer, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.

I’ve proudly taught vets since 2003. I love what I do, and I’m doing what I can to help. I’m not being facetious, hard-hearted, or disrespectful. But by the time both Will and Jake leave my office, I need a therapy session.

Is it selfish to ask who’s going to help me?

Yes. It does seem incredibly selfish.

What can I know about what my students have gone through, are going through? The ones who have been to war, the ones who waited for them to come home, and the ones whose loved ones didn’t come home, or didn’t come home whole?

 It has been a long war for all of us.

So I get up and go teach another English class.

*Not their real names. I do not write about students who are currently in my classes. Will and Jake’s stories are used with permission.

Melanie