The Time Keepers

Chapter 41

CHAPTER 41 Vietnam, 1969

A FTER J ACK RETURNED FROM HIS TWO-WEEK LEAVE TO BURY HIS mother, he was slapped into the harsh reality of combat duty. The comfort of a real bed and Becky’s soft skin was now cruelly replaced by the reality of sleeping in a foxhole with the radio headpiece in his ear and one of the men in company patrol keeping vigilant watch beside him.

Flannery was the first to welcome him back. He came over and slapped Jack on the back. “It’s good to have you back, Hollywood.… They made me carry that damn radio when you were gone. Man, that thing’s a bitch.” He kicked the ground. “And I’m real sorry about your mom.”

Jack tossed his head back. “Now you get why they call it a Prick-25.”

“Yeah, no shit. Carrying thirty pounds in this heat is bad enough. Adding another twenty-five on your back.… Shit, man …” Flannery shook his head. “That’s a fucking bad deal.”

The men were just as he had left them: hungry, wet, and tired. Doc had just returned from Cam Ranh Bay for Rosh Hashana. None of them had ever heard of this holiday before, but the military had decided to make a conscientious effort to see that the Jews in the military would celebrate their New Year and Passover. So they flew the enlisted men out to an idyllic spot where a chaplain oversaw a service for the hundred or so Jewish men. According to Doc, three Jewish women were also there, one with a particularly good sense of humor who took a Polaroid to send home to her mother with an inscription on the back: Who knew I had to go to Vietnam to meet a nice Jewish boy?

There was something quirky but lovable about Doc. Perhaps it was the fact that he didn’t appear as hardened as the rest of the men in the squad. He almost never swore, which was an anomaly. The others punctuated every other sentence with a curse. While the training and life in Vietnam had beaten every ounce of softness out of the men, he still had a boyish sensitivity in him that made him seem younger than his years.

It seemed strange to Jack that a corpsman like Doc, whose mother still sent him care packages of M&M’s, would have enlisted on the day before his eighteenth birthday to be a field medic.

He knew that Navy corpsmen who served as medics had to first do extensive training at corps school, learning basic emergency first aid medical training and triage before they were even sent out into the field. Volunteering for the role involved a minimum three-year commitment.

“Why didn’t you just go to college and medical school if your number wasn’t even called, Mike? I just don’t get it.” Jack shook his head in disbelief. “You can’t really like this shit? Can you?”

“I grew up hearing stories from my dad and my uncle about World War II.” Doc tried to find the words to explain. “I idealized both of these guys.… Dad was a medic and so proud of serving in Patton’s army as they tore through France.” In the moonlight he looked pensive as he remembered the family lore, the very stories that had inspired him to enlist. “But it was my uncle’s story, about a six-foot-three medic named Tex who saved him during the invasion of Peleliu, that I think really ultimately drew me to the corps.” He closed his eyes and the story fell from his lips, the oral history that he had heard from his uncle that was a part of him. “Tex was patching up Uncle Nate from a shrapnel wound and then fell down on top of him during heavy fire to protect him, like a human shield—the medic just gave his own life, just like that,” explained Doc. “Hearing stuff like that growing up as a kid just made me want to do my part, I guess.”

Jack had not grown up hearing glorified War World II stories that had fed so many of his fellow marines’ souls. Almost all of them were sons of vets, and it gave them a foundation of purpose that was missing for him. But perhaps it was for the best. He didn’t want to burst any of their bubbles, but he knew firsthand from the incident in the airport that there wasn’t going to be a ticker tape parade for them like their dads received when they returned home.

“You wanna be a doctor when you get back to the States, though, right?” Jack could easily imagine Doc sitting behind a wooden desk, talking gently to his patients. He had just that kind of demeanor that fit into the image of a typical television show about a devoted small-town physician.

“I think a pediatrician. I love kids.”

“You’d be great. I wanna have five kids with my girlfriend.” Jack slid back and laughed.

“You’re just thinking about making five kids,” Doc ribbed him.

“You’re right, man,” answered Jack before the conversation turned toward food, Doc dreaming of his mother’s pot roast, Jack, a Philly cheese steak. Hunger manifested itself in so many ways.