Summer of '69(4)

Jessie had nodded her head against the rough linen of Miss Flowers’s jumper and when she looked into Miss Flowers’s eyes, she saw that she truly believed those words—and for one sterling moment, Jessie believed them too.

June 7, 1969

Dear Messie,

I’m writing a letter now to make sure it reaches you in time for your birthday. They say it only takes a week for mail to reach the States but when I think about the distance it has to travel, I figured better safe than sorry.

Happy birthday, Messie!

Thirteen years old, I can’t believe it. I remember when you were born. Actually, all I remember is Gramps taking us for ice cream at Brigham’s. I got a double scoop of butter brickle in a sugar cone and the damn thing fell over and Gramps said, Aw, hell, then got me another one. I don’t know how much you remember about Gramps, you were pretty young when he croaked, but he was a hell of a guy. Before I shipped over, Nonny gave me his class ring from Harvard, but we aren’t allowed to wear rings, so I keep it in the front pocket of my flak jacket, which isn’t that smart because if I get blown to bits, the ring will be lost forever, but I like to have it next to my heart. It makes me feel safe somehow, which may sound corny but Messie, you would not believe what counts for a good-luck charm around here—some guys wear crosses or Stars of David, some carry rabbit feet, one dude has the key to his girlfriend’s bicycle lock, another guy has an ace of spades that won him a big hand of poker the night before he shipped out. And I have Gramps’s class ring from Harvard, which I don’t advertise because the guys might think I’m trying to boast about my pedigree. But what I guess I’m trying to tell you is that the guys carry things they think have magic powers or things that remind them why they might like to stay alive.

There are a few of us who have proven to be natural-born survivors, which is good because our company has been dropped right into the action. I’ve made two real friends here in Charlie Company—Frog and Puppy (properly Francis and John). The other guys call us the Zoo because we all have animal nicknames but they’re jealous of how tough we are. The three of us have stupid contests, like who can do the most pull-ups on a tree branch and who can learn the most curse words in Vietnamese and who can smoke an entire cigarette without taking the damn thing out of his mouth the fastest. Frog is a Negro (gasp—what would Nonny think?) from Mississippi, and Puppy is so blond and pale he’s nearly albino. We should have called him Casper or Ghost, but those nicknames were already taken by other guys in our regiment, and since he’s the youngest in the platoon, he’s Puppy. Puppy is from Lynden, Washington, all the way up by the Canadian border—raspberry country, he says, bushes as far as you can see, all of them growing fat, juicy raspberries. Puppy misses those raspberries and Frog misses his mama’s vinegar coleslaw and I miss Brigham’s butter brickle. So we are a mixed bag, a cross-section of our great country, if you will. I love these guys with all my heart, even though I’ve known them only a few weeks. The three of us feel invincible, we feel strong—and Messie, I hate to say it, but I know I’m the strongest of the three of us. At first, I thought that was because of Coach Bevilacqua making the team do so many wind sprints and climb all the stairs in the stadium, but that only makes you tough on the outside, and to survive here, you also have to be tough on the inside. When it’s your turn to take point when you’re charging a position, you have to be brave, and I mean brave, because chances are good you’re going to be the first one to encounter Charlie. If you meet up with enemy fire, you’re taking the bullet. The first time I led my company, we were headed down this jungle path, the mosquitoes were roaring like lions, it was the dead of night, and a group of VC sneaked up behind us and slit the throat of Ricci, who was bringing up the rear. We engaged in a firefight and a couple others were shot, Acosta and Keltz. I made it out with nothing but two dozen mosquito bites.

I hear other units have gotten shrinks to come in and help them deal with the way this stuff messes up your head. When we go out on a mission, it’s almost certain that at least one of us is going to die. Which one of us is only a question of luck, like which ducks are you going to hit with your water pistol in a carnival game. When I was teaching kids to drive in Brookline, I knew the war was going on, I watched it on TV with you and Mom and Dad, I heard the body counts, but that didn’t feel real. Now I’m here, and it’s too real. Every day requires fortitude, which wasn’t a word I knew the definition of until I got here.

At night when I’m on watch or I’m trying to fall asleep while also staying alert, I wonder who in the family I’m most like. Whose DNA is going to keep me alive? At first I thought it must be Gramps’s, because he was a successful banker, or my father’s, because he was a lieutenant in Korea. But then you know what I realized? The toughest person in our family is Nonny. She’s probably the toughest person in the entire world. I’d put our grandmother up against any Vietcong or any one of my commanding officers. You know that way she looks at you when you’ve disappointed her, like you’re not good enough to lick her shoe? Or when she uses that voice and says, “What am I to think of you now, Richard?” Yes, I know you know, and that’s why you’re dreading going to Nantucket, so if it helps you be less miserable, remember that the qualities of Nonny that are making you unhappy are also the qualities that are keeping your favorite brother alive.