In 1971, a young Californian, just 18 years of age, had just come through one of the most exciting times in American history, the “hippie era”. The birth of the Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, and all of the anti-war and anti-establishment thinking of this period of American history had colored his perceptions and influenced his life in ways which would stay with him through long years of living and loving and working and playing as a citizen of what, he believed, was the greatest nation on the face of the earth.
And in spite of all that free thinking, his heritage called to him, and when faced with a new young wife, and a son of his own on the way, his thinking changed a bit, and his sense of overwhelming responsibility and altruism settled upon him, along with an urgent need for gainful employment and something to do, besides riding his motorcycle, playing his guitar, and building picture frames, his occupation at the time. There was a war in Viet Nam, in Southeast Asia, going on at that time, and there was a draft, which conscripted young men of 18 years for military service, often in the sodden rice paddies and jungles of a strange land, far away, and this young man knew his number was low on that draft list, and that if conscripted, he’d probably serve, just as his father and grandfather had done.
So, this young American heeded the call of his nation, and enlisted in the United States Army, as the war in Viet Nam was winding down, and would hopefully soon end, and further, he chose to enter the US Army Medical Corps, in the hopes that he could contribute to the only positive aspect of war… the healing and care for those injured by it. For, you see, this young American was deep in a personal “closet”, a secretly gay man, already, and his love for other men was undeniable, but confusing, frightening, and disturbing, at that time in his existence.
Off he went, to “basic training”, at a place called Fort Lewis, Washington, where he learned his own limits of endurance, his own surprising abilities and strengths and physical prowess, and he was filled with pride and grew handsome and “buff” and powerful and fearless with all the training and propaganda and sense of unity singing in his heart and mind. After basic training, he was off to San Antonio, Texas, for medical training, where he learned the tools and techniques for dealing with the tragedies of war, the injuries and damages sustained by human minds and bodies when exposed to explosives and bullets and toxic gases and horrendous radiation and poisons and malice and hate.
After this training, it was back to Fort Lewis, Washington, to a place called Madigan General Hospital, MGH, a large medical facility where the young man was assigned to an orthopedic ward, to care for those returning from the Republic of Viet Nam, with broken bones and shattered spines and missing limbs and all the wonderful consequences of political differences approached at the point of a gun.
And there, this young man met another… a man named “Richard Garcia”, a third-generation Mexican American boy, just 19 years old, same as himself. But Richard had one rather startling difference happening in his life. Richard, it seems, had driven over an explosive device, in a flimsy jeep, on a dirt road in that far-away land of Viet Nam, and Richard was missing all four of his limbs, and most of his lower torso, including his sexual organs. Richard, you see, was one of those Veterans the U.S. Government never, ever wants you to see, and was consigned to a bed in an Army hospital, cared for by other young Americans soon to be Veterans, themselves, and Richard was the stark and foreboding TRUTH about war, that is never shown on a television newsreel, or even shown in public, at all.
Our young American, soon to be a Veteran himself, cannot, to this day, forget Richard Garcia, or all the other “Richards” that now come to us from places like Iraq and Afghanistan, cannot forget his screams in the night as he was beset by “phantom pain” in limbs that no longer existed on his body. Cannot forget the tears on Richard’s face, as he begged for the mercy of death, rather than face a lifetime lying in his own urine, unable to scratch an itch, turn himself over, or do anything, much, but stare at whatever visual field was before him. Begged to leave this world, rather than face life with no mobility, and with the shattering knowledge that even that very organ which declared him a “man” was gone from him, blown away by the explosives which rendered him a tortured mind attached to an immobile lump of flesh.
Today, we “celebrate” Veterans’ Day, in the United States of America. Let us remember, this day, what war and hate, and politics at the end of a gun are really about… they are about the Richards they produce. Not heroes, not flag-waving, puffed and proudly marching handsome young soldiers in uniform, or wrinkled and opinionated medal-sporting old men in Lodges and Veterans’ gathering places around our nation… no, they’re about those Richards, hidden in the back rooms of Veterans’ Hospitals, or lying, dazed and broken beneath freeway bridges, mumbling in shattered mental illness to themselves, as they try to absorb what war has taught them, but cannot, and so resort to alcohol and drug abuse and the refuge of insanity, to stop the horrid images in their damaged brains.
The young American who cared for Richard, as his first “assigned patient”, as a young Army medic… that was me. I cannot forget, I will not look away, and I beg all Americans, everywhere, to lower your mental flags to half-staff this day, and remember, and know that being a Veteran is a proud thing, but a thing of shame, as well. Reach out to the damaged and broken who walk among us this day, as yet another political war brings home more “Richards”, to live their sorry existence hidden among us. Lower your eyes and pray to whatever Gods you worship, that someday soon, the reality of war will exist no more upon this earth, and there will be NO “Veterans’ Days” for a future generation to ponder these harsh realities and sad, sad, consequences. Time for change is NOW.
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