July 4th was my homecoming, or as I tell people, I was reborn on the 4th of July, 1967. That’s the day I arrived back in “The World” after spending a year in Vietnam. This Sunday, July 12th, we’ll go to Platteville to visit the Moving Wall that will be there for several days. I’ve never been to The Wall in Washington. I suspect it would be very emotional to see all those thousands of names etched in stone. Some of those names belong to people I knew. I’m just glad my name isn’t among them. It could easily have been.
There is one incident that I’ve mentioned to a handful of people, but don’t think they really understand. Actually, very few people would. They’ll say it was all in my mind, which in reality, it was. You’ll probably think I’m crazy too.
When I was in Vietnam, I had a close call, and thought I was about to die within the next few seconds. A grenade landed within a few feet of me and I didn’t have time to do anything. There’s no way to describe the feelings I had when I saw the grenade hit the ground and thought my life was over.
In those few seconds, when I expected death to come, I found myself standing in the back forty of our farm, near a dilapidated, old shed that stood among a grove of trees. I was standing near the corner of the farm and looking at all the sights that I knew I’d never see again. Now we live on the same spot where I found myself standing during that incident. The shed is long gone, but the grove of trees is still here and so am I.
As I stood looking around, I suddenly found myself at Smith School, the little one room school where I went for eight years. The school has now been removed because of a new highway the state wants to build, but I’m still here. I can see where the school once stood from where I now sit and write this story. One time, being the great art critic that I thought I was, I made fun of a drawing a girl had drawn on one of the black boards. I won’t use her name in this story. As punishment, the teacher had me stay inside during recess for two days and write over and over on the board, I will not make fun of the artwork of other people.
As I observed that day from my childhood, I saw the incident again, not from my perspective, but from the girl’s perspective. I could feel her pain and how much I had hurt her by the comments I had made about her drawing. This may seem like a very insignificant occurrence to most people, but it must have left a lasting impression on me, because now I was sorry for what I had said. In that moment I wished I could tell the girl that I was sorry for my comments and ask her to forgive me.
That experience, made me think about life, death and what we do with our time here on earth. I came to conclusion that we are not judged by the Creator or “The Force,” for what we’ve done during this life. I think we judge our own life, just as I did in that instance. We must decide if our life has been full of love and helping others, or were we self-centered and hurtful to other people. Was our journey a success, or did we waste our precious time?
I came away from that experience with those thoughts. An epiphany if you wish. Needless to say, the grenade didn’t explode and I’m still here, or I wouldn’t be able to write about it. The Force was with me that day! It was not yet my time to leave, but I came away from that experience with a deeper feeling that there are mysteries in this life that we can’t begin to explain.
Was my mind so frightened in that moment by the thought of death, that I just thought these things, or did my mind–the soul–actually leave my body and instantly transport itself back to my childhood and let me see those things for a reason?
I’ve given this a lot of thought over the years. There’s more truth to that old Star Wars line, “Trust the Force,” than many people think. Perhaps The Force knew what was best for me.
As Linda says, “You had other things to do, people you needed to help, and you had to survive to accomplish them.”
I don’t know why I’m still here and other friends are now names on The Wall that I will visit this weekend. I’ll think about that as I view their names and be thankful for these extra years that those guys didn’t get to experience.
Author Ben Logan and I have talked about this. He was the only survivor on his LST in World War II. He decided that he needed to live for those guys too and not waste the extra time he was given. That’s the way I feel too. I was reborn on the 4th of July and I don’t want to waste a moment of this extra life I’ve been given.
No comments:
Post a Comment