His Story in My Words
Rhea Windon

Facing It

My black face fades.
Hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn’t
Dammit. No tears.
I’m stone. I’m flesh.

Chu chu chu
Chu chu chu chu chu
Chu chu chu chu chu chu chu chuchu chuchu chuchu
Chuchuchu chuchuchu chuchuchu chuchuchu
Chuchuchuchu chuchuchuchu
Chuchuchuchuchuchuchuchuchuchuchuchu…. Sound became visual. He could not hide from the sound. The constant spinning of a helicopter’s wings, the static of the transistor radio, the clank of the gun shaft, mud squished under heavy combat boots, wind beating the leaves, raindrops sitting on the brim of his hat. Everything was constant. Soldiers’ feet aligning. One after another was marching to the monotone commands. Right left right left right left. The sour beer and banana chips were not filling the empty feeling. Like brown dust from the dry road his eternal loneliness settled.

            A small sheet of paper had diminished his dignity. A death certificate with a postmark and an addressee. For valor and honor, what did he leave? An apartment, Lady, a 9 month old German Shepherd, sixty four credits toward a degree from UCA, a carefree lifestyle, mangos in the backyard, a hopeful and optimistic girlfriend. It has to be a dream. He could not have been here; just yesterday he was there.

            “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.” His love for this country surpassed his love of himself. He heard his father say, “Son, it is a good thing to do the right thing. Fight for what you believe.” He believed in his father. He believed in family: three sisters, Mary, Diane, Patricia, and three brothers, O.B. Jr., Charles, Donald. Shall he be crucified? Shall they nail him to a stake to wipe out communism? Must his hands be pierced with the pains of war?

            Age five, he pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. America, God shed his grace on thee. America, home of the free and the brave. America, a country built by people of his stature and his color. America, a country that had owned and sold him. America, a country that had legalized a colored drinking fountain in his town. America asked him to sacrifice all he was and all he wanted to be. Uncle Sam needed him. Did he need Uncle Sam?

My clouded reflection eyes me
Like a bird of prey, the profile of night
Slanted against morning.

            He rocked gently in the hammock. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed secrets in his ear and the sun’s rays darkened his nose. Jesse played his music loud. “Baby, Baby, where did all the love go?” Diana Ross repeated her question and offered empty answers. He opened another beer and continued to read the sweet smelling letter.

            Neat handwriting on rose-colored stationery captured his attention. For a single moment he was back in her arms. The arms that would not let him go. The arms of a hippie hugged him with love and the smile of innocent regret. Long black hair that smelled of gardenias coated her back, and she wished he would go to Canada. She wanted a future and he wanted honor. September fifth, nineteen hundred and sixty-five, he was boarded American Airlines, flight 587, handed the uniformed blonde a ticket. He re-shifted his bag and stopped when he heard a whistle. L O N G short L O N G short L O N G short. The whistle was produced from her plump lips. He spun around. Her tear-stained cheeks were flushed. She was not stone. Her beliefs were broken by the heavy woes of love. They hugged. They kissed. He promised to return and she promised to pray.

I turn this way – the stone lets me go.
I turn that way – I’m inside.

            He spent six weeks in the dry heat of Kentucky. All he learned was how to fold socks to the size of quarters, iron a crease that could kill, and fucking march. She did not write. “Jackson,” “Morehouse,” “Miller,” “Nichols,” “Polland,” “Steinberg,” “Thrush,” “Vicksburg.” Never “Windon.” He folded, ironed, and marched. His feet were sore from carrying the fifty-pound boots with his ninety-pound body. He was told to gain weight. The more he ate the less he hoped. He grew to one hundred and ten pounds before long.

            Seven weeks passed. “Steinberg,” “Thompson,” “Thrush,” “Windon.” His heart was beating like the wings of a hummingbird as he opened the yellow envelope. There was a dried gardenia wrapped in a note. The gesture was small, but the hope was huge. She had sent only her signature proceeded with the word, love. He placed the brittle flower inside the Holy Words of Psalms and slid the note in the middle of Revelation. That was his Revelation and he had reason to return.

            In the belly of the giant green plane, he longed to return to the fetal position. That pregnancy was longer than nine months and the hope of an easy delivery was impossible. The boys were being born into an undecided land. The afterbirth would stick to their hearts and souls forever. “Honor thy father.” He had to be brave and face the enemy.

            The enemy was guilty of being the enemy. Overnight “they” became the problem. They had sinned and, “The wages of sin is death.” They were guilty of an Americanized belief. The belief that they should no longer be ruled by an outside power. The belief that they did not have to follow the rules of the French Catholics or any other power of Europe.

            Two years ago, he knew nothing of the Vietnamese. His small town protected him. The ugliness of people was concealed in the binding of history books. Now, he held the gun of ugliness and the binding of those history books had been stretched to accommodate his story.

            As he landed in the jungle, he prayed God was watching. He needed Him as a witness in this trial. The ground was wet and the steam that rose from the marsh was blinding. Grass blades stood over him and swayed in the hot breeze. The White men cursed the Yellow men. The Black men cursed the White men for cursing the Yellow men. And the White man cursed the Black man for being Black.

            For the sixth time, he re-laced the heavy black boots. He re-counted the wrenches given to him. Sixteen wrenches of every shape and size laid before him. He flipped through the 106-page instruction manual. The large insect-shaped machine required hours of work. For two years, he watched the shared suffering from behind the massive metal chopper. He fixed the helicopters. Was it a lesser crime?

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Again, depending on the light to make a difference.

            Nineteen hundred and sixty-seven he returned to her as promised. Her prayers have been answered. Her future was now. He had seen, heard, and tasted the enemy only to find that they are not the enemy at all. The only enemy was the one who sent him there.

            She noticed the change. He was distant and distracted. His worldview was altered. He had proof that human life was not enduring like a rock and roll song. They had tailored his naïve perception of the world. In the hopes of winning, they covered everything and everybody with the orange powder. It settled on the vegetation and sucked out the greenness. It settled on the ones they called soldiers and sucked out the will to proceed.

I go down the 58, 022 names,
Half-expecting to find
My own in letters like smoke.

            Millions of dollars were collected and spent. He heard Presidents promise an end. They sent more boys and promised a victory. He didn’t care. She did. Thousands of young lives later, America still offered no explanation. He had flashes. Flashes of heavy feet on soft land. Flashes of Green. Flashes of Red. Flashes of Blue. He was awoken.

            Nights were long and days were short. He held her hand and walked along the hot white sand. As their feet altered the delicate shoreline, he was reminded of the sound… chuchu chuchu chuchu chuchu chuchuchuchu Left. Right. Left. Right. “Baby, Baby, where did all our love go?” Clank. Clank. Gook. Gook. Them. They. Chu Chu chuchuchuchu Gook chch uch uc hu chuc hSoldieruc huc chuchuLove chuchuchuchu chuchuchuchu. It was embedded in his eardrum.

            She giggled at the crab in his shoe. He didn’t see. He could not feel it. He looked at the sun lowered into the sea. He knew the day was just beginning for them. He knew they were preparing for an endless day after a hot sleepless night. A prayer was not necessary, for he didn’t want to disturb God. God was not listening.

I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap’s white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman’s blouse
But when she walks away
The names stay on the wall.

            He knew he should continue with her. Nightly he bathed in his sweat and tears. She rubbed his shoulders and massaged his feet. Her comfort was radiant, but he had turned to stone. At the sixteenth parallel, America made a decision for him. They decided that he would not sleep tonight.

            As his anger mounted, there was no place to store it. Small things were big. Nixon promised an end. Nixon said “peace with honor.” Honor was what he had when he flew half way around the earth. Honor was what he had lost a year ago, in the rain.

Brushstrokes flash, a red bird’s wings
Cutting across my stare
The sky, a plane in the sky.

            The television attempted to show the wrongs of the enemy. They all seemed like rights to him. He didn’t want to talk about it. The honor was now transformed into shame. This was not what his father had promised. This was not the feeling of victory. It had not made him a man. It had not secured his future. It had not given him purpose. It left him alone.

A White vet’s image floats
Closer to me, then his pale eyes look through mine. I’m a window.

            In her eyes, he was man. He sacrificed two years for a country that did not know the him she knew. The him she loved after two hours. His brown eyes cried for respect and she offered all she had. It was not enough. He was not the thin brown boy at the party. His humor and joy were given to a country that snakes itself along the rock of China. There, in the South China Sea, his hopes were beaten like a Prisoner of War.

            The question was not “What did Vietnam do to us?”; the question is “What is Vietnam doing to us?” He waits for an answer.

He lost his right arm
Inside the stone. In the black mirror
A woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she’s brushing a boy’s hair.

Yusef Komunyakaa