I think of our family’s educational lineage, daunting to me. My grandfather attended the University of Chicago, my father, Notre Dame.
“Law school?” I say. He might as well have instructed me to land a spacecraft on Mars. “But my grades are … abysmal.”
“Then you’d better get to work.”
College. The military. Law school. No mention of Augustus’s bourbon recipe or becoming a distiller.
But my father has spoken.
And as all fathers I know of his generation and mine, his word is law.
I don’t dare face another head shake—or worse.
Without speaking, I revise my plan.
Beginning now, I’ll do what my father says.
My dad and me 1943 before he shipped out to join General Patton's Third Army in France during the 2nd World War.
3 War
I CARRY WITH ME the naïve and romantic notion from books I’ve read and movies I’ve seen that I will join the military and become an officer and a gentleman. My college transcript quickly torpedoes the officer idea. A private I will be. Life, I’m learning, seems to consist of starts, stops, and, mostly, beginnings. Starting from scratch.
I’m not sure which branch of the military I should join, but the Navy seems promising, or at least the safest and least stressful. One day, in 1966, as senior year at the University of Kentucky comes to an end, I sit across from a stone-faced Navy recruiter who pores over pages of forms that he’s told me I will momentarily sign. He’s wearing a uniform and appears to be an officer, but based on his gruff demeanor, I don’t figure him for a gentleman. He grunts, does his own head shake—never a good sign—and then laughs, hard, jarring me. I realize then that he’s looking at my transcript. He shakes his head again and sifts through a few other forms.
“Looking to fit you into the right slot,” he says, after yet another head shake. “Your grades are—”
“Abysmal,” I say, helpfully.
It’s only a matter of time before I will learn the meaning of that word.
“Correct,” he says, scowling at the form. “You want to be an electrician?”
“I’m not good with wiring or that sort of thing. I majored in English.”
“We speak English. What about a boatswain’s mate? You want to be a boatswain’s mate?”
“Uh, okay, maybe, I’m not quite sure what that—”
“You do basically everything. Rigging, deck maintenance, really anything that’s required to run a ship.”
“I’ve never been on a ship,” I admit. “I’ve been on a boat. A small boat. Done some fishing. We have this little river—”
“How about a medic?”
“A medic—”
“Yeah. A corpsman. You work in the hospital.”
I perk up. “With nurses?”
“Yes. Nurses.”
I picture our frat parties on campus. Nurses, coeds, partying, the Navy. I’ve clearly chosen the right branch of the military.
“I’ll do that,” I say. “I’ll be a medic. That’s great.”
He pushes the forms over to me and I sign them with a flourish. Only after I attach my signature do I see at the top of one of the forms that I will be heading to basic training—in the Marines.
“Excuse me, I thought I was joining the Navy—”
“You are. Marines are part of the Navy.” He leans forward, his eyes cold and dark, and he snarls, “That would be—excuse me, sir.”
* * *
I complete boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Installation, a virtual city of more than 1,000 buildings spread over more than 1,000 acres north of Chicago. After that I head to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, where I train to become a corpsman field medic (FMF), then complete my medical training at a military hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia. Looking back, this timeframe flickers and then unnerves me. I feel as if I’m caught in a vortex of events whirling around me, out of my grasp, barely in my sightline, including one event that I hazily envision but appears off to the side, nearly eluding my memory altogether. Nothing that significant. Only my wedding.
In 1967, I marry Stephanie Patrick, a high-spirited Kentuckian who keeps me laughing and on my toes. Though Stephanie doesn’t attend UK, we meet at a fraternity party. One thing leads to another, we start dating, we get engaged, and one Sunday I see myself standing next to her at St. Francis of Rome Church in Louisville, murmuring marriage vows to each other before God, a clergyman, and a tiny cluster of family and friends.
I must believe that I never want the party better known as college to end and, by marrying Stephanie, I’ll simply keep it going. But early in our marriage, I receive sobering news. The Navy mails me my orders. I will be joining the First Marine Division in Vietnam.
Two nights before I leave for Vietnam, I say goodbye to my family. The family convenes in the kitchen for what feels like a last supper. We don’t talk much, the conversation sporadic and strained. Afterward, I spend some time with my sister, Mary Jo. We say an awkward goodbye and then she wraps her arms around me in a long, tearful hug. I go into the kitchen and find my mother drying some dishes, an absent look on her face. I’ve always felt close to her, comfortable talking with her, struck by her beauty, disarmed by her easy laugh, open to her sensible advice. We hug and she goes off to bed. A wave of emptiness shudders through me. I allow it to pass, take a deep breath, and seek out my father.
Bourbon in one hand, cigarette in the other, he sits in his chair in the living room—every dad has a chair—and I sit on the couch next to him. The silence in the room presses into me. I hadn’t expected lively conversation with my father before I left for Vietnam, but I hadn’t been prepared for such—quiet. The quiet unnerves me. Maybe I expected words of wisdom from my warrior father, but I receive none. Time flicks by and I begin to fidget.
“Well,” I say, starting to stand.
“Write your mother,” my father says.
I sit back down at the edge of the couch. My father looks past me, his face obscured in a cloud of cigarette smoke. I wonder if he’s seeing something far away, something from his past, his war.
“Write your mother and tell her you are in no danger,” he says. And then he pulls something out of his shirt pocket.
“Take this.”
He hands me his St. Christopher medal and neck chain.
I stare at it, speechless.
My father takes a drag from his cigarette.
“It worked pretty good for me,” he says.
I murmur thanks. We don’t hug. We don’t have to.
Two days later, before dawn, I leave.
* * *
Who are you? Why are you here?
We land in Da Nang at night, a group of us, mixed up and mismatched, none of us in the same unit. We’ve come to replace those who have