When we decided the theme of this meeting would be America, I immediately thought of my friend Mike. I think for me, the existence of this country and the existence of Mike are the same thing. I seldom think about the one without also thinking about the other. Mike is a Viet Nam veteran.
When we were teenagers, Mike and I were freaks. In those days, people tended to call certain people “hippies” or “hippy types”. But we always used the word “freaks.”
Mike and I were buddies. I remember how he came to my house with a six pack and threw little stones at my window. I lowered my guitar case on a rope and he put the beer in it and I pulled it up. Then he went around front and knocked on the door. “Is Spike home?” I had an old tape recorder and we’d go up in my room and record music off the radio or record player. We put the microphone in front of the speaker and tried to be quiet while it recorded. We loved the Animals. Mike looked a lot like Eric Burdon, only taller, with broad shoulders. He was stocky and strong.
I have always felt safe with Mike. Once, at an overnight party, I got drunk. And I was so sick I couldn’t go home. Mike held my head while I threw up in a trash can. I gave him my high school ring for safe keeping. Then, I laid back and looked out the window. And it was morning. A ray of sunlight was shining on a trellis full of roses. I thought it was a sign. I said, “Mike, I know I’m going to die. When I’m gone, I want you to have my guitar.” We were that close.
“Mike, I know I’m going to die. When I’m gone, I want you to have my guitar.”
Mike and I believe that God sometimes brings us together for some great purpose. For example: the time we kept each other out of the big acolyte scandal. For the non Lutherans, acolytes are like altar boys. Mike and I were acolytes. One of the jobs of the acolytes was to meet at the church on the day before Palm Sunday and split the palm fronds to be given out in church the next morning. Well, one year, Mike and I got together on that day. And we completely forgot about the palms. We went out on my bicycle, with Mike pedaling and me on the front. And we rode for miles out in the country. We had a great day.
The next day, we found out what we had missed. The acolytes had met at the church, alright. And they split the palms. But one guy made a comment, and one thing led to another. And they all piled into a car and went out and ripped off a rubber machine from the men’s room at a gas station. They pried it off the wall with a lug wrench. Oh, they got caught by the police. But not until after a high speed chase. The getaway car was the pastor’s car. The driver was the pastor’s son. And he didn’t have a driver’s license. If we hadn’t been out together, we might have been in trouble too. That was when we realized we were charmed.
When we were in high school, it was the mid 1960’s, and I got involved in the civil rights movement. But in 1966, Mike somehow fell under the influence of teenage American Nazis. We didn’t agree, but we didn’t try to convert each other. We always accepted each other as we were. Besides, I never thought he really believed all that stuff deep down.
Mike graduated high school in ’66, and that summer was the last time we worked at Camp Jolly Acres. That summer, Mike became a born again civil rights and peace advocate. But now, he had a problem. He was against the Viet Nam War, but he was a prime candidate for the draft. And if he got drafted, they would almost certainly put him in the Army and send him to Viet Nam. He couldn’t get a draft deferment, and he wouldn’t lie or cheat to get out of the service. And he wouldn’t move to Canada. Leaving his country was out of the question. So Mike enlisted in the Navy Medical Corps. He thought he could serve on a hospital ship and stay out of the fighting. And he’d be helping people.
But, then he did so well in Corps School, they sent him right in with the Marines. The men in his platoon called him Doc. And they trusted him more than anybody. Especially officers. An officer would get you killed, but Doc wouldn’t. Mike and his friends were in some of the worst fighting. And before it was all over, they sent him home wounded and “shell shocked.” Mike went away young and strong. Now, because they exposed him to Agent Orange, he looks old and thin, with grey hair. And he has a lot of medical problems.
I never completely came back. Some part of me was left there
Yes, I wanted to tell you about Mike. But I didn’t know if I could — or how I could. Then, two weeks ago, out of the blue, as if he knew I needed him, Mike called up and came to visit. He said, “You know, Spike, I’d go back again. Even knowing what I know now. I would. I never completely came back. Some part of me was left there — was replaced by something dark, evil. That –lack of compassion or pity.
“Like the time we were out near Da Nang and we had to cross a river. And there were two bridges. We figured the enemy had mined one bridge and left the other one for their own use. But, we didn’t know which one was safe. I suppose we could have waded across. But there was an old Vietnamese man there, and we asked him which bridge was safe. Right away, he answered, ‘That one. That one safe.’ So John grabbed him by his beard and dragged him over to that bridge, bouncing along on the ground. He stood him up at the end of the bridge and told him to walk across. He wouldn’t do it. John shot a few rounds in the ground behind his feet. The old guy was shaking: he was scared out of his mind. But he still wouldn’t set foot on the bridge. So we knew that bridge was mined. But, Spike, we laughed! We laughed our asses off! I thought that was the funniest thing I’d ever seen!”
Mike went on to talk about what happened to Dan Hart. It was a certain incident he had told me about before. Hart was a young Marine from Oregon. He was brave, humanitarian, quiet. He didn’t drink or smoke dope, or anything. But he would associate with other people no matter what they did. So he often hung around with freaks. Mike told me that shortly before the incident, Dan had killed his first person up close. It happened at night. At night, it could be so dark in the jungle, that if a person were quiet enough, he could walk right up and breath in your face. This particular Viet Cong was not quiet enough. Dan opened up with his machine gun. And in the muzzle flash he saw the man about five feet away. He was stopped in the process of throwing a grenade, like the statue of liberty. Coming apart with each hit. Dan was really shaken up by that.
Not long after that, Dan and some of the freaks in Mike’s platoon went down to a swimming hole to cool off and relax. They sat on the rocks on one side, and on the other side was a group of “straights.” They treated the swimming hole as their own turf. They shouted insults across at the freaks. One of them, just to show off, pulled out his .45. And with a clear eye and without remorse or hesitation, he leveled it at the nearest freak and blew him away. That’s how Dan Hart died. And as Mike told it, I could tell that’s where he left a part of himself.
When Mike went away, we wrote to each other pretty regularly. But then the letters tapered off and eventually stopped. It wasn’t intentional. More out of negligence and preoccupation, I suppose. But, I have always blamed myself for this. As though I abandoned him when he really needed me. Mike has told me not to feel that way, but I haven’t yet been able to forgive myself for it. I think guilt is a major legacy of the war. Guys like me feel guilty because others went and we didn’t. Guys who went feel guilty because others got injured and they didn’t. Guys who got injured feel guilty because others got killed and they didn’t.
Mike and I were friends before the war and we still are. But, the war came between us. I guess we could spend the rest of our lives trying to get back to the way it was. But, now I think we’ve started building a safe bridge to the way it will be.