Ode to a Warrior

I talked to my friend's widow today. She is not so sad now but her heart weighs heavy. Her husband of 31 years still bumps into things after the lights go out. He limped away from a head-on collision 2 years ago this month with only a broken kneecap. He was not at fault. He was victimized at random by a criminal. Their paths crossed in space/time.
I talked to my friend a week after the wreck and we laughed at his situation. He said he might get used to this being "waited on hand and foot" shit while he was recovering. He was in exceptionally high spirits. We were best friends. I never got mad at him. Maybe I should have.

He dropped out of high school in '68 and joined the Airborne. I thought he was nuts. He wanted to jump into some stinking jungle. He wanted something better than moping around the old hometown with nothing to do when there were serious guns to shoot and planes to fall out of. He wanted to fly. He wanted to wear camouflage and sneak around. I told him he was crazy and could get very killed.

He injured himself in jump school so the Army being the Army, made him Infantry and introduced him to his mistress; the M-60 machine gun. My friend was a large apparition. He wore a size 14 jungle boot. They called him Lurch and put him in recon so he still got to sneak around in camouflage. He spent the early morning hours of his 19th birthday hosing down a tree line from the skid of an inbound slick, having the time of his life.

I was with him the night before he left for Vietnam. I later joined the Navy to avoid going where my friend had gone but I ended up there anyway, killing by proxy from the deck of an aircraft carrier. My friend came home hardened, like a concrete bunker. He came home scarred and decorated for valor, introverted, but he came home.

We decompressed together over the years, rode motorcycles and fished unlikely spots, drank our share of beer. Then he got married and followed his dreams. We had been friends since the 8th grade. He would only talk to me about his combat. He said nobody outside of his unit would understand what he had gone through but he said I did. He talked of the noise, the smell of fresh blood and spilled brains, of smoke, the screaming, the taste of fear like an old car key, the ringing in his ears, of the urge to shit. There are men alive today because of him. I've met a couple. He was a man with heart, a man with courage and compassion, a true hero. I was humbled and honored to be his friend. We called each other Mel just for fun.

When I talked to him last, we laughed and made plans to get together during the coming summer. He and his wife were going to be in town and somewhere there were cold ones with our names on them.

The next day I talked to my friend's father-in-law long distance. My friend had thrown a clot and collapsed in a parking lot somewhere. The ambulance was late but they found him. They had to restrain him because he only wanted to go home. He was fine he said. The medics said otherwise and ran hot, lighting up the traffic.

He died a few hours later.

When I got off the phone to my friend's father-in-law, I wept like a child.

Sometimes, I still do.

He was my best friend. He was a warrior with a heart of gold.