Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Monday, May. 31, 2004 - 5:14 p.m.

Memorial Day again.

There was once a boy named Pete, who went over to Saudi Arabia during Gulf War I, where he was assigned to a base, checking incoming vehicles for bombs, along with another boy named Jeff. Both were young, about 20. They shoulda been in school, drinking and chasing girls. But they were from hick towns in Mid America where the economy sucked and there wasn't much of a way out, so they joined the Marines, instead. And met up in a guardhouse in a desert on the other side of the world, where they became instant best friends, two kindred spirits passing time talking about all the things they wanted to do when they got out, their dreams, their plans for life, school, girls, cars.

When a truck came up to the gate, they would take turns checking it out. One of them would talk to the driver and examine his papers while the other would walk around the truck with a mirror and check underneath it for exposives or people trying to sneak in. They took turns and traded off duties, and when a certain truck pulled up to the gate, it was Jeff's turn to see the driver, but Pete said he'd take it and left Jeff to check out the undercarriage. Jeff was walking around the far side of the truck near the back when he heard the shots. He dropped his mirror and unslung his gun and ran around the rear of the truck in time to see Pete sinking in slow motion toward the ground, his knees gradually giving way, his back a mass of red. Enraged, Jeff reacted quickly as the man driving the truck brought his gun to bear, and emptied his machine gun clip into the man. The force of his rounds drove the man backward, against the open door of the truck; when he was finished, the man was hardly identifiable as human. Jeff ran to his friend lying in the sand staring up at the sky, fell to his knees and scooped him up, crying. A part of the back of Pete's head fell open against his arm. The military, in all their wisdom, packed Jeff up and sent him back to his regular unit. No counselling. Just a here's your gun, you're okay, good job, son. He never told anyone back at the unit what had happened.

He didn't tell me, either. I read about it in his journal, because we were fighting, and he left it open, and I wondered if he really did love me, because I could never connect with him, and there it was, all spelled out, how he felt like such a worthless person, because he had taken a life in anger and couldn't feel remorse, because this man had killed his friend. He had a black, useless heart and was unworthy of love or happiness because he had done a terrible thing and wasn't sorry he had done it. At 20. In a war in a desert a world away. I read page after page and cried. For a boy who would never go to college or finish rebuilding his classic car or take a girl to the drive-in, kiss her, date her, marry her, and have children. For another boy who could not love or be loved, who ripped himself apart in a million ways every day because he believed he was a horrible, unworthy person who had come home unscathed when it should have been him and not Pete.

How many more like them are there? How many from that first time in the gulf? How many more from this one? How many from Vietnam, Korea? The world wars, the revolution?

Memorial Day is more than a nice, long weekend. It's more than an excuse to drink beer and barbecue on a decadent Monday off. While it might be a bummer to remember why we have the day, we need to. And not just for those who died for freedom and justice, and all those good and true things we like to tell ourselves they died for in noble endeavors. We also need to remember those who sacrificed themselves simply because they were in the wrong place. In fields rich with oil or deep in rice. We need to consider innocence lost and lives sacrificed, whether for freedom or business. And we need to work toward a time when they won't be again. So maybe in the midst of your alcohol consumption today, you can take a second to mentally raise one to Pete and all the others like him and Jeff. No matter how you feel about why they died or were there. You know; in the spirit of the day.

Peace out,
Katie

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