My Honor Flight (19 page)

I took about three steps
and pulled my sidearm from its holster in one fluid movement.  The guard lost
his smirk, and his eyes got really big.  He didn’t move, and I brought the
pistol right up under his chin, pushing it into the soft tissue of his gullet, up
above the voicebox.  With my left hand, I grabbed the back of his neck, using
it as a backdrop as I jammed the pistol deep into the soft tissue.  He made a
gagging sound, and quickly fell to his knees.

 “Mack!” yelled Tinpan.  “What
the fuck’re you doin’?”

I reached up to his hair
with my left hand and jerked his head back so he was looking up at me.  And I’d
pushed the pistol as far into his gullet as it would go.  I could feel the skin
stretched tight.  He struggled to breathe, and veins popped up around his
temples.  But he didn’t say anything.

McGregor chimed in.  “Soldier! 
Drop your weapon!”  I heard the distinctive rattle of the rifle as he brought
it up.  I knew he’d aimed it at me.  But I didn’t care.  I thought back to when
O’Halloran had died.  And Paul Taylor.  And Mike Franklin.   Gunderson,
Hillbilly, Kozlowski.  Pete.  So many others.  I saw images from the disaster
in Bastogne, and I pushed that pistol even further into his throat.  I was
probably killing him just by poking him.  Then I released the safety on the
pistol.

 “No!” yelled Tin.  “Goddamn
it, Mack, he ain’t armed, and we ain’t in combat.  You cain’t shoot him like
this!”

I remember watching the
little bastard’s eyes.  Blue as a sunny day.  First they showed surprise when I
attacked him, then passive compliance as I pulled him to the ground.  Then as
he gasped for breath, fear and survival.  But now his eyes were calm.  Those
pale blue eyes looked up at me, slowly blinking.  Acceptance.  He was ready to
die.  I think he WANTED to die.  Was he acknowledging his hand in this
atrocity?  Was he guilty of evil?  Did he want me to free him of his own
memories?

We were all frozen in our
stances in the silence for what felt like an hour.  At first, this huge wave of
righteousness enveloped me.  I was bringing justice to the Germans.  I desperately
wanted to pull the trigger.  In fact, I started to squeeze it, just as Tin
started talking in a real calm voice.  At first, I didn’t understand his words.
 I just recognized his voice.  But then he kept saying a word I did recognize. 
Debbie.
  After about the third time, he brought me out of my focus.

 “Mack, think about
Debbie.  If you do this, you’ll be a criminal.  You’ll be arrested.”

The guard’s blinks were
getting longer.  He was struggling to breathe as he was losing consciousness. 
Tin’s words were getting through my adrenaline.  
Debbie.
 My hands had
been all tense on the guard’s hair and on the pistol grip.  But when I pictured
Debbie, it was like a slap to my face.  I relaxed slightly.  The guard gasped
as I pulled back a little on the pistol, and air rushed in as he inhaled.  At
that moment I felt my face flush hot in a panic.  I had actually crossed the
line.  I had intended to murder someone.  It wasn’t combat.  I was going to
kill someone, not because we were in battle, but because I wanted to.  What
kind of monster had I become?  Had the war turned me into a murderer? 

I stepped back and let
the guard fall to the ground.  With trembling hands, I struggled to get my
sidearm back in the holster.  I collapsed to my knees, and put my face in my
hands.  Then I started bawling like a baby.  Tin made a few comments, but I
didn’t hear him.  Then I felt a firm grip on my shoulder.

 “Get up, son,” came a
familiar voice.  It was full and deep.  Cap.

I stood up, but I was
shaking my head, still crying.  “Goddamn, Cap!  This place turned me into a
killer.  I’m a fucking monster!”  Cap grabbed me by the back of the neck, and
pulled me into a hug.  He held me real tight, and I just released on him.  I
was shaking as I cried, probably for five minutes.  Nobody said anything.  As I
kind of let up, he released his hug on me.  Our eyes met.

 “Doug, you’re a hell of
a good man.  Our whole platoon was full of good men.  And we saw things that no
one should see.  We did things that no one should do.  But we had a reason.  We
had a
purpose
.  That purpose is done now.  You won’t kill again.  You’re
going to go home, go back to Michigan.  You’re going to get married and have a
bunch of little shits running around your house.  I’m not going to pretend that
you’ll forget your time here.  You won’t.  Ever.  But you know that you did the
right thing, when it was needed.  You sacrificed, so others could be FREE.  You’re
a hero, son.  We all are.  But the killing is done, and you won’t ever think of
killing anyone again.”

I sniffled and wiped the
snot on the back of my hand.  “This sure doesn’t feel like a hero,” I said,
looking down. 

 “Well, being a hero
ain’t about parades.  It’s about doing the shit work when no one else wants
to.”  He punched me in the chest with the heel of his palm. “So get to the
hospital and do some more shit work.  We ain’t payin’ you to stand around lollygagging.”

We smiled at each other, and
I turned with the others toward the hospital.  They were still looking at me
pretty wide-eyed.  Later on, Tinpan said that the look on my face was the most
intense thing he saw in the war.  He said he didn’t think I’d even hear him, so
all he could think to do was try to get the word
Debbie
into my mind. 
It worked.  He saved me that day.  So did she.

We stayed at that camp
for a week.  Toward the end, there weren’t any prisoners left, and we were just
staying there until we determined our next assignment.  We walked through the
buildings, and we found one of the barracks with the key still in the lock.  Bill
Stackhouse pulled the key out of the door, and stuck it in his pocket.  “This
door isn’t locking again.  Ever.”  I thought that was pretty powerful
symbolism.

I sat next to
Pops as the bus made its way from the airport to the memorial.  After hearing
his stories, I couldn’t help stealing glimpses of this little man, amazed at
everything that he’d told me.  During my whole life, he was just a friendly old
guy who would give me candy when we visited his house in Michigan during the
occasional holiday. In my teen years he would ask me about my girlfriends, and
laugh as he’d tease me about them.

Dad had
instructed Pops to bring photos from the forties, and one souvenir from the
war, to show to us at the memorial.  I smiled at the photos as I paged through
the old album.  Pops looked tough back then.  I had no image of him other than
a shrunken old man with wispy white hair.  The photos were a stark contrast—lean
face, hollowed cheeks, muscular frame, bright eyes that peered right into the
camera.  And his hair really was crazy.  Even with Brylcreem, he couldn’t keep
it all down.  Cowlicks in almost every photo.  And Grandma Debbie was a
hottie.  I wished she were still alive to come with him.

The plan for
today was not as straightforward as it appeared.  I knew that.  Dad told us
that he was going to take a commercial flight and meet us at the memorial.  But
Dad was always pulling pranks or setting up puzzles.  I suspected there would be
more to the day.  Every Christmas, he would have some form of puzzle that my
brother and sister would have to solve to get an extra Christmas present.  It
was a tradition in our house, and I think he enjoyed it more than we did. 

Today, he had
arranged for us to fly back with him on a commercial flight later.  The Honor
Flight folks didn’t like the approach, but when he’d told them more about his
plans for the day, they let us make a one-way flight to the memorial.

Pops knew that
we were meeting Dad at the memorial.  He thought I accompanied him so that he
and I could spend some time together.  Maybe to pass on some wisdom before I
deploy.  In three months, I was scheduled to leave for Afghanistan.  Between
stories, we talked about my assignment.  As I heard more of his stories, I
began to admit that I was scared.  He convinced me that I wasn’t a chicken.  That
what I was feeling was normal. 

During the
whole day, I was a big hit with the Honor Flight passengers.  All the former
soldiers admired my uniform and asked me about my outfit.  They’d squeeze my
shoulder or pat me on the back.  “Go get ’em, son.”  “You’ll do just fine.” 
“Make us proud!”

But now, Pops
and I sat together on the bus, and I watched him watch out the window.  I
wondered what Dad had in store for us at the memorial.  I wondered what Pops
was thinking.  The bus rolled to a stop, and we sat for about ten minutes as
the geriatric crowd slowly, one by one, stood up and shuffled out of the bus. 
No one was in a hurry.  They all understood that they were moving as fast as
they could.  I stood up and backed up, and helped Pops to his feet.  I watched
him as we walked down the aisle.  He kept bending down to look out the windows,
trying to get a better view of the memorial. Like a little kid on a school
field trip.

As we made
our way down the bus steps, the June sky was blinding.  I blinked a few times
as my eyes adjusted, and then stood for a minute taking in the sight.  The
memorial was up ahead, but to our left the Washington Monument pierced a brilliant
blue sky.  It was the perfect day.  We walked slowly toward the entrance. 
Honor Flight staffers gave us instructions and handed us pamphlets.

Dad appeared,
smiling a mischievous goofy grin.  He WAS up to something. 

 “Hey guys,
good to see you!” he said.

 “Hi, Petey,”
said Pops.  Petey.  Grandpa’s name too.  I had never had any idea.

 “Did you
bring the souvenir?” asked Dad.

Pops patted
his jacket pocket.  “Yep.  Did you bring what I asked?”

 “Yep,” said
Dad, patting HIS jacket pocket.  “But first, let’s go in.”

We headed to
the Atlantic side of the memorial first.  Pops slowly studied the bas-relief
panels, spending an especially long time staring at the Battle of the Bulge
panel.  His eyes moistened.  I wondered if he was replaying the bloodbath in
his mind.

 “Hey, Pops,”
said Dad.  “Turn around here, I want you to see something.”

We both
turned, and I looked right at my brother!  And then Mom, and Grandpa and Grandma,
and my sister.  Uncle Dan was here too, with his wife Rachel and their two
daughters, Steph and Katie.

 “What in the
world?” stammered Pops.  A tear trickled down his cheek.  I held my breath and
bit my lip, fighting back tears myself.

Grandpa
stepped forward and hugged Pops.  “We wanted to share this experience with you,
Pops.”  He cried too.  Everyone was crying.

After a few
minutes of hugging and smiling, we started to wipe our tears away. 

 “So what do
you say, Pops, should we keep looking around?” I asked.

 “Not quite
yet,” said Dad.  He was grinning again.  “We’ve got one more little surprise
for you.”

No one said
anything.  But they all had goofy grins like Dad, and they started crying
again.

 “Hey goomba,”
a voice croaked from behind the line of relatives. 

Pops
stiffened, and then he smiled.  “There’s only one S-O-B with that voice!” he
said.

The family
parted to show three men behind them.  Two were in wheelchairs, and one stood
behind them. 

 “Hey there,
Light Bulb!” exclaimed a shrunken, bald-headed man in the left wheelchair.  The
lenses of his horn-rimmed glasses had to be an inch thick.  “Looks like Buzz
Company is back together!”

Pops slowly
walked to the men, his lips trembling.  The men in the wheelchairs stood up,
and joined the one behind them.  They met in a circle of our family, and hugged
each other, crying and laughing.  Oily Chartelli, Big Swede Torgeson, and Bill
Stackhouse.  The last of the Ninth Platoon, Buzz Company. 

Dad had
arranged it all.  He used last year’s Christmas bonus to pay for everyone in
the family to come to the memorial at the same time as the Honor Flight.  There
were conversations everywhere—people talking to Dad about how he did this, the
veterans talking with each other, telling old inside jokes and stories.  Some
of the veterans’ family members also arranged to come along.  We had about
thirty people in our group.  Finally after about a half hour, the old men
started to get tired.  They all sat down in wheelchairs, and we were ready to
begin the solemn trip around the memorial. 

The four
wheelchairs were side by side, and if one of the men wanted to stop, they would
all stop and talk.  As they passed the columns, they would ask each other
questions.

 “Oklahoma? 
Who in the outfit was from Oklahoma?”

 “Tinpan
Jones was from Oklahoma.  I think he was the only one.”

 “Ole Tin.  He
was a hell of a good man.”

 “Yeah, he
was.  Hey, Mack, you remember that barn in France?” said Torgeson.

Pops smiled,
and looked back at me as I pushed his wheelchair.  “Yeah, I remember it like it
was today.  That guy was crazy!”

 “Crazy like
a fox!” said Torgeson.  “Saved our rear ends that day!”

 “Alabama.  Anyone
from Alabama.”

 “Yeah,
Hillbilly was from Alabama.  What was his name?”

 “Hillbilly
Jackson.  But he wasn’t from Alabama.  He was from Tennessee.”

 “Maybe Paul
Taylor?”

 “No, I don’t
think so.”

I cleared my
throat.  “Taylor was from St. Louis.”

Stackhouse
looked at me.  Even in his old age, he seemed solid.  “How do you know that, son?”

 “Pops told
me some of the stories from back then,” I said.

Stackhouse
nodded.  “Paul Taylor was a hell of a man.”  The others nodded in agreement.

 “You
remember our first battle in Normandy?” said Chartelli.  “Paul saw us get our
cherries busted—uhh, I’m sorry, ladies, I don’t mean to be rude.” The women in
the group just shook their heads and smiled. 

 “That was
where we got our first taste of combat.”  They all nodded, and I noticed their
lips tightened.  For a brief instant, I saw that battle-hardened grimness in
their faces.

The tour went
on like that for another hour, mixing stories and laughter and jokes.  No one
talked when we went to the Freedom Wall—4,048 gold stars, representing the
404,800 Americans killed during the war.  When they reached the Eisenhower
quote, they all stood to read it. 
D-Day June 6, 1944.  You are about to
embark upon the great crusade toward which we have striven these many months. 
The eyes of the world are upon you...  I have full confidence in your courage,
devotion to duty and skill in battle
. 

They stood in
front of that quote, not talking for several minutes.  Each was in his own
thoughts.  One by one they turned and went back to their wheelchairs.  No one
said anything.  And no one moved.  It felt like we were in church, praying for
our own intentions.  Eventually we started moving again.

One of them
spotted a
Kilroy was here
inscription in the wall, and they all guffawed
about that.

 “I haven’t
seen that in years and years,” said Pops.

 “Ya, me
neither,” said Torgeson.

 “Pops,” said
Dad.  “Would it be all right if you all showed your souvenirs now?”

 “What do you
mean ‘you all’?” asked Pops.

 “Well, I
asked everyone to bring a souvenir,” said Dad.

The men were
all in a circle facing each other now, and they looked around at each other in
anticipation, like little kids at Christmas.  The family members were all
gathered around in a circle, and some of them handed items to the veterans. 
They put the things in their laps.

 “Is that
it?”  Chartelli asked Pops, nodding at a felt-covered jewelry box on Pops’s lap.

 “No, this
isn’t what you’re thinking it is,” said Pops.

 “You were
always embarrassed by it,” said Chartelli.  “You should be proud of it, Mack. 
You earned it.  You saved our asses.”

 “Earned what?”
I asked.  Then I felt a little self-conscious about breaking into the
conversation.

 “Jesus,”
said Chartelli, slapping his forehead in slow motion.  “You mean this kid don’t
even know?”

Pops looked
down and shook his head.  “I never wanted a reward for killing.”

 “Look here,
young fella,” said Chartelli, motioning me closer.  “You going to combat and
all, you need to know this.  Your old great-grandpa here won the Medal of
Honor.  Without him, the whole damn platoon would have been wiped out in
Belgium.”  The entire crowd murmured in admiration and surprise.

 “That’s not
true,” said Pops, nodding to Torgeson.  “We had a whole group of us, didn’t we,
Swede?”

Torgeson
nodded.  “Ya, but Mack, you led us.  If you hadn’t been there, we wouldn’t have
survived.”

 “Was this
the old watermill in Belgium?” I asked.

They all
nodded, but looked at me quizzically.

 “Hey, kid,”
asked Stackhouse.  “What DON’T you know about Buzz Company?  I hope he didn’t
tell you about all my girlfriends over there!”

Everyone
laughed, but Pops and I snuck a knowing glance at each other.  I know we were
both thinking about his affair in Paris.  But he wasn’t embarrassed.  He just
kind of nodded at me in acknowledgement.

 “So, who
starts?” asked Torgeson.

 “I’ll go,”
replied Stackhouse.  “That young fella over there told us to all bring any
souvenir we had that the others might appreciate.  Well, I got this.”

He had a
little black velvet bag on his lap, and he loosened the drawstring with shaking
hands.  Slowly he reached into the bag, and pulled out a rusted cast-iron key. 
He held it up for all to see.  The other three men nodded silently and got
really quiet as it was passed around among family members and the men from Buzz
Company.  Their eyes moistened again.

He paused and
wiped his eyes, then cleared his throat.

 “You see,
this key, to me, represents the worst of man.  We took this key out of a door
in the worst place I’ve ever been in the world.  We rescued men out of a
prisoner camp in Germany.  And I still have nightmares about that place.  I
think this was the best trophy Buzz Company pulled out of the war.”

 “Amen,” said
Chartelli.

There was
another long time of silence.  Torgeson stirred.

 “Well, I
suppose we should keep going,” he said. 

He had a felt
jewelry box similar to Pops’s.  He snapped it open, and with his liver-spotted
hands, pulled out some coins, and passed them around.  But they weren’t coins. 
They were medals.  Three of them, all inscribed with
1944 Buzz Co. Champ
. 
On the back, I could just make out the event names: 
Arm Wrestling, Rock
Target
, and
3-mile run
.

 “I’ll be
damned!” yelled Chartelli.  “These were my baby!”