Viet Nam was a contact capsule. A day will be winding along its normal route and…POP!...there goes yet another little tiny time pill and there goes that certain part of your brain careening out of control while the straight part tries to put things back together before someone notices that something is out of whack.
Each veteran adapts to this condition in his own way. I have gotten so good that I now manage with a degree of ease. Teaching a class, coaching a game—I seem quite normal when a little tiny time pill goes off, much like my alcoholic Uncle John, who can be soused to the gills and yet do his job with perfect aplomb.
Take the other day as an example. I was in the trainer’s room taping a wrestler’s injured ankle. One of the other coaches asked me if I had seen “The Deer Hunter” or “Apocalypse Now” on HBO. I replied that I hadn’t. He said that I probably shouldn’t, as the films might cause nightmares. I laughed. “With all the pretty women in this world,” I responded, “you think I’m going to waste my dreams on Viet Nam? I dream about…”—and…POP!...for no good reason at all I was thinking of Kevin.
Kevin and I had been through basic training together. Sent to Nam at the same time, we met by chance one day while we were both visiting the 101st Division base camp. We decided to stay there for the night so we could drink some beer and reminisce.
Kevin was a medic with the First Air Calvary Division. He had just returned from a trip to the boonies (the jungle) during which his unit had been suddenly and savagely mauled.
The first person Kevin had tried to save that night died in his arms while calling for a mother who was a half a world away. And then things got worse. We talked about the incident briefly. But what could you really say? After much beer and a little reminiscing, we went to sleep.
Suddenly I sat straight up, stunningly catapulted into consciousness by something I could not name. Then I understood: Kevin was screaming. The sound was full and long and high and absolutely unwavering. If a watch could speak, and you wound its mainspring so tightly that it could stand no more and burst, the watch would make a sound like Kevin’s.
I don’t know how long the moment lasted. It was one of those instants—Nam was a Pandora’s Box full of them—that made complete mockery of the stern and unbending logic of seconds and minutes. When he was done giving himself to the night, Kevin collapsed back on his bunk.
I never asked him what happened. We were tough then: one solved his own problems.
But then again, maybe one didn’t. A good friend of mine is in the anomalous position of being a lawyer and a combat veteran of Nam. (Most of the professions understandably have few Viet Nam veterans. After all, murdering fascist baby-killing drug addicts are a trifle unstable.)
David works for a top firm in New York. Smart and tough, he is an excellent lawyer with a great future. (as long, he says, as he keeps quiet about what he is.)
One day David is scheduled to interview a candidate for a position in his firm. The candidate’s resume reads like a champion’s pedigree: Choate, Yale, Harvard Law, and an initial practice with a prestigious Boston firm. If you cut his name, it would bleed blue all over its Roman numeral. The guy walks into Dave’s office and says “Hello” in a voice dripping with certainty. After all, in his world, righteousness is inevitably rewarded. From another world, Dave sits there and…POP!...
My friend, who has never this happen to him in all the years since Nam, begins questioning the kid, at first half in jest and only half seriously.
David: I see by your resume you were never in the service, although it appears as though you were eligible. What happened?
Candidate
Candidate: (a bit offended at David’s crude language) My father is a friend of Senator *** They arranged something.
And suddenly for David it’s not half in jest anymore. He continues:
David: How can a lawyer justify the use of special influence?