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Chapter 7: Veterans Days
 By Jim Caple |
Previously at 24 College Avenue: Former housemate Katie Maynard lost an arm and a leg during an insurgents attack in the war. In an experimental procedure, State College bio-surgeons gave her bionic limbs in their place, allowing her to pitch a fastball at tremendous speeds. Red Devils softball coach Bonney Lake has asked her to play on the team. Nicollette Mayle is a former housemate and sprinter who posed in her underwear for a men’s magazine two years ago. . . .
Rain beat down and flowed off the umbrella in great rivers as Katie’s sloshed along the pathway. “Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,’’ she counted precisely, her eyes looking ahead for what she had braved the rainstorm to see . . . and also did not want to see. “Seventeen, eighteen . . . nineteen,’’ she counted until stopping at the 20th grave in.
“Kent Woodway,’’ the simple headstone read. “1980-2007.’’ There were no other words.
“Sarge.’’
She was surprised to find herself gasping for air. She had avoided this moment ever since she had returned from the war and been released from the rehab hospital, unsure whether she had the strength for it. And yet she knew she had to confront the past to be able to begin her future. So she used the Veterans Day weekend to fly to Woodway’s hometown and find the cemetery in which he was buried. She touched her hand to her chest until she felt her heartbeat calming. She kneeled down in front of the grave and tenderly traced her fingers in the letters carved into the headstone.
“Sorry I haven’t been up to see you before now,’’ Katie said. “It wasn’t because I didn’t want to, it was just that, well, you know. . . . It was . . . too tough is all. I wasn’t strong enough yet. I’m not sure that I am yet.’’
She sniffed and remembered how he used to shout at Katie when her pushups got sloppy. He would act soooooo upset.
“Can I tell you a secret?’’ she whispered, afraid someone might hear. “I had a little bit of a crush on you. Nothing serious. Just a, well, you know, a crush. I never said anything because I knew how awkward that would make everything. Of course, you probably knew that, though. You seemed to know everything. That’s why everyone liked you so much. You always knew just what to say to make everyone feel a little more comfortable, a little safer.
“Like how you invited me to play on the camp softball team when I was feeling so down and homesick and wondering what the hell I was doing there, what anyone of us was doing there. And you even let me play third base even though I wasn’t the best player, because you knew how much softball meant to me and how it made everything else tolerable. ’’
Liquid began to stream down Katie’s face and she didn’t know whether it was rain or tears.
“God, why couldn’t we have played that last game instead of going on patrol that day? Dammit, why did you have to die?’’
The memories flowed back swiftly now, of the ambush in the city. They were following three other Humvees onto Peace and Prosperity Bridge when there was an enormous explosion and the bridge collapsed into the river, taking the vehicles ahead of them. Debris rained down on Katie’s Humvee and a concrete block dropped onto the hood, smashing into the engine block and shattering the windshield. She, Woodway and the rest of the unit scrambled for cover. Specialist Elliott Bay was the first to be killed, nearly decapitated by snipers bullets striking him in the neck. Private Jackson Park and Corporal Madison Hill were killed soon after when a rocket-propelled grenade exploded in front of them.
Katie, Woodway and Specialist Stewart Street managed to find cover in an alleyway but not before another bullet found the sergeant’s femoral artery. He cried “Mom’’ and then lost consciousness while Katie held him in her arms. Katie was trying to find his pulse when another grenade landed near her. The next thing she remembered was waking up in an army hospital in Germany without her right arm and left leg.
The months of recovery had been hard, filled with pain and doubt and nightmares that left her screaming. This day had been one of the worst. It was Veteran’s Day but it didn’t feel special. No one from the old house had bothered to call or text, probably because they were hung over from the previous night’s party. Or buying beer for the next one. That’s all Veterans Day meant to them – another day off from classes. That’s all it meant to anyone. Just another day, another day to go shopping or go to a movie. Or complain that they didn’t get the day off like all those “lazy government workers.’’ Heck, there was hardly anyone else at the cemetery to pay their respects. Sure, the weather was awful but still.
Katie remembered an argument she had with Nicollette back when they were in the house. There were so many arguments between the two women; one ultra-conservative, the other ultra-liberal and both of them so certain of their views. Katie couldn’t even remember how this one started, all she recalled was that she had grown tired of hearing Nicollette’s whining about the war and told her, “Well at least I’m doing something to back up my convictions. I’m going to serve my country and probably fight in that war to protect your freedom to race and party and pose in your underwear!’’
She would never forget Nicollette’s response. “You’re not defending our freedom. That country never posed a threat to us. They were never going to invade us and take away our precious freedoms. That’s just something we say to rationalize invading them and killing tens of thousands of innocent people.’’
Katie had wanted to hit Nicollette then. Even later, when Nicollette apologized and said she meant no disrespect to Katie or the troops, only toward the government policy that was ordering them to fight and die in an “unjustified” war, Katie did not completely forgive her housemate. It was just too easy for someone to say something like that when they had no personal stake in the war.
That’s what’s wrong with this war, Katie thought. Only a tiny percentage of Americans had any stake in it at all. While hundreds of millions went about their spending and playing as normal, a small group left their families and sacrificed their lives and limbs in the war. And why? For what? Did anyone appreciate what they did? Were conditions any better there now than when the war started?
If only Sarge was alive. He always made sense of everything.
Katie wiped the rain and tears from her face with the cuff of her sleeve. “Anyway, I needed to come here and tell you something,’’ she said. “It’s this new arm they gave me -- it can throw a softball like you can’t believe. I mean, I’m good, really good. So they want me to play softball for the school team and I wasn’t sure whether I should or not, but then I thought that you would want me to. And I thought if I did, I could dedicate the season to you so people would know how special you were and how much they owe you.
“So I’m going to play. And I just wanted to tell you that and give you this and make a promise to you.’’
She stood up and reached into her backpack for what she had brought specially for this moment. And that’s when Katie realized she wasn’t alone.
Katie looked behind her and saw a frail older man with white hair, glasses, a baseball cap and a rain jacket. He was soaking wet from the rain.
“Did you know him well, soldier?’’ the old man asked, gazing toward the grave.
“Yes sir,’’ Katie said. “We served together in the war. My name is Katie Maynard. I was there when he was hit.’’
The man stared at Katie, glancing at her artificial limbs, studying her face. “I see,’’ the man said. “Women in battle. Such a terrible thing.’’
“Yes, sir. But I was proud to serve my country.’’
“And so was I. So was I. But we all were back then. Wasn’t the way it is today. We were all in it together and we all did our share, soldier and civilian alike.’’ He looked over the cemetery. “Of course, some of us gave more than others.’’
“Did you lose any friends in the war?’’
The man wiped rain from the bill of his baseball cap. “No. I never saw a friend die. Never had anyone shoot at me. Never fired my rifle at anyone.’’
“Then you were one of the lucky ones, sir.’’
“Yes, that’s what people always told me,’’ the man said. “But I don’t know.’’
He looked off into space, lost in thought for a moment.
“Sir?’’ Katie said.
The man turned back to her. “I was assigned to a war graves registration center. ‘Graves registration.’ Another great military term. We sorted corpses.’’
Katie gasped. “Oh, God.’’
“Yes, it was a grisly job. Soldiers were killed all over Europe -- France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and as much as possible, the bodies were recovered and sent to centers for transport home. Or burial in a military cemetery in Europe. It was our job to sort them out. Identify the bodies, remove the personal effects. It was very strange. Some of the deaths were so recent and the bodies looked so clean – there wouldn’t even be so much as a bullet wound on them – that you would have sworn they were just asleep. You half expected they would just wake up if you nudged t hem. And others, well, the vast majority of them, those were much, much worse. Limbs blown off. Faces blown off. Some were nothing more than body parts.’’
Katie noticed the man’s legs were trembling slightly.
“Did you ever have the misfortune of smelling a soldier after he had been dead for a day or two?’’ he went on. “That was the smell we lived with everyday. I read about workers in canneries who can’t get the smell of fish off their hands. No matter how hard they wash and scrub, they get home and they can still smell the fish. That’s how it was for me. After a long shift, I would stand in the shower, scouring my body with rough soap in scalding water. I literally scrubbed a layer of skin off my left hand one day. But it didn’t do any good. Even if you could somehow get the feel of the dead skin off your own flesh, you could never get rid of the stench. Once it got into your nostrils, it was there for good. I got to the point that I couldn’t eat because the food started tasting like death. I lost 40 pounds. Got to the point where I weighed less than I do now. They said I looked like a corpse. That’s how I eventually got discharged.’’
Katie didn’t know what to say. “How long were you there?’’
“They sent me home after seven months. But I never really left. I had regular nightmares, including one where I would be mistaken for one of the bodies and buried in a mass grave. I would wake up screaming when they started shoveling the dirt on us. . . . Even now, a smell will hit me – a beach at low tide – and I’m right back there, standing in a tent, sorting through bodies. And I’ll just feel like vomiting.’’
He paused.
“I was 18.’’
A strong wind kicked up leaves from the ground and swirled them around the two. Katie shivered.
“You know,’’ the man said, “I’ve only talked about that with one person since the war. Just my wife. And only a couple times with her, right after we got married when she was worried about my nightmares. Never talked about it after that. Not even with my children. I just couldn’t. I guess I wanted to protect the kids from such horrors when they were young. And then it just didn’t seem that important anymore. Like it happened so long ago it had happened to a different person.
“I don’t know why I told you. For the life of me, I don’t know. Didn’t make me feel any better. Probably didn’t make you feel any better either.’’
Katie shrugged as if to say it was all right, she understood. But she did want to change the subject. “Are you here to see someone?’’
“My grandson.’’
“I’m sorry,’’ Katie said. “Where is he?’’
“Right in front of you. Kent Woodway.’’
“Oh God,’’ Katie said.
“I didn’t want him to enlist but he had ideas of his own,’’ the grandfather said. “He said it would pay for college and well, he wanted to serve his country after the terror attacks. Maybe I should have told him about my experiences. Maybe it would have changed his mind. Maybe it would have changed something. Or maybe not. You never know in this world.
“One thing I have learned is that you can’t beat yourself up over the past. It’s over, done. Gone. You have to keep going. That’s my advice to you.’’
Katie felt herself beginning to cry again, so she put her arms against the grandfather and pressed her face against his coat. She did it primarily to hide her tears but she also did so because she needed to hold someone. She was pleased to notice that he didn’t flinch at the feel of her artificial arm.
“There, there,’’ the grandfather said, gathering her up in his thin arms. “It’s going to be all right. Everything is going to be all right.’’ He patted her on the head and stroked her hair. “I’m sorry but when I was walking up, I overheard you telling Kent that you were going to play softball for some team. I think that’s good. You should. He would like that.’’
He put his thumb and finger underneath her chin and lifted it up so that she was looking him in the eyes. “C’mon. Let’s get you out of here. You’re soaking wet.’’
“But you came here to see Sarge. Your grandson, I mean.’’
“That’s all right, Katie,’’ he said. “I see him everyday. And besides, I think he would want me to take care of you now.’’
He began to lead her away from the grave but Katie suddenly remembered what she had meant to do and turned back. She pulled what she had brought with her to the cemetery from the backpack.
Then she gently kissed the old softball glove – the one she had used during the games with Woodway in the war – laid it on the grave and whispered, “I’m going to win a championship for you. I promise.’’
Next: Thanksgiving
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