Pat Shannan's MUSINGS
THE OTHER PRISONERS OF WAR
I was in a hurry, about to run a little late if I didn't keep moving; heading for an investigative appointment at Latuna Federal Penitentiary. That prison officer had been nice enough to allow me in for a special Sunday visit on short notice, so I didn't need to keep him waiting, and the story had national implications which could blow the lid off something I had been working on for months.
It was a warm September morning when I pulled up the exit ramp from Interstate 10 west of El Paso and stopped to wait for the light to change. It was then I noticed the stranger on the grass on my left. He sat on his old suitcase at the curb with a crudely lettered, cardboard sign that read, Vietnam Vet: New York to California. Around fifty years old, he had a long beard, was scraggly dressed, and the lines in his leathery face reflected the hard turmoil of his life. But the ray of gleam in his eyes reflected his world of dignity and self-esteem. A single crutch lay on the concrete beside him.
I used to hitchhike around the country myself, and for many years hence I had always enjoyed returning to the next generation of travelers a small portion of the favors extended to me in that long ago past. In recent times, however, I have felt it prudent to be more discriminating. Admittedly, I almost never succumb anymore to my empathetic heart's desire of risking to help out a poor wayfaring stranger. My grounds for these innate suspicions in today's society go without saying, but this man appeared trustworthy to me for some imperceptible reason. I flipped on the left turn signal - more to convey to him the unspoken message of I wish I was going your way, Pal, but I'm not, than to obey any traffic laws.
During the minute I sat there, I wondered about him, and the thoughts raced through my head by the mili-second: What had he done with his life the last thirty years after being so uselessly wounded over there? Has he been bumming around ever since, or has he a wife and house full of kids somewhere waiting for him? Or maybe just an empty hovel in the woods? Is he going to a particular destination or just chasing the next dream to see what appears on his unforeseen horizon? Is he in constant pain? I bet he could use a cold beer and a hot meal.
I was about to roll down the window and greet him when our eyes suddenly met. Instantly, all my feelings of compassion for this man's shattered life rose to even a higher level of sensitivity. My better judgment directed me to not look the other way and ignore him, as most who came by here probably had done. I wanted to acknowledge his presence but felt he was worth more than a banal wave. Consciously I wanted to make him feel important somehow - to silently make him know that someone cared - but I declare my next move was an unconscious, spontaneous response on my part. I didn't think about it. It was just one of those spur-of-the-moment, uncontrollable reactions that raised my right hand to my eye in a salute of recognition. There was nothing grandiose about it - just a simple acknowledgment.
Yet my impetuous gesture spoke volumes to him, and he would not take lightly my impulsive wandering into such hallowed territory. Rather than immediately returning the salutation, but with an apparent inner need to respond properly, he quickly got his "stuff" together (as in a wholesome translation of military parlance). First he dropped his placard and reached for his crutch; then struggled to an erect position of attention and pursed his lips, before giving me the most exaggerated, respectful, military salute anyone had received since Douglas MacArthur returned to the Philippines. Not until he stood up did I notice that his left leg was amputated above the knee.
To him, it may have been as if we were both back on the battlefield ten thousand miles and a lifetime away, and yet I had never even been there. He couldn't know that. Perhaps I appeared as an unknown brother or maybe, in my fancy rental car, as a former officer who was just saying "hello;" spoken in a language understood only by those who had survived the pits of Hell together. Might I just be someone important in his life, did he wonder, and therefore, did he wish to return the respect I had just shown him? His mind must have been moving as fast as mine. Whatever the case, he was frozen in the position of a saluting statue, refusing to move before I did.
Just then the light changed, and I cruised by him and around the corner, but through the rear-view mirror I saw him retain his attentive position until I passed. Only then did he drop his right hand and complete the salute as dramatically as he'd begun; this time maybe to the imaginary battalion of men assembled across the road.
By the time I reached the next corner, consumed in my thoughts of the poignancy of the moment, I turned the car around and headed back. Destination and schedule be damned. I can lose a minute or two.
"I'm only going to Arizona," I said, when I pulled up next to him and buzzed down the right hand window, "but I can take you that far a little later, if you still need a ride when I get back. But I may be a coupla' hours."
"Thank you, sir," he replied. "If I am still here, I will be proud to ride with you."
As I drove away again, I began to realize that I was suddenly more interested in talking with this old soldier than to the federal inmate who had so much to tell me; and I hoped to get back in time to do so.
As it turned out, someone had bungled the bureaucratic red tape at Latuna, and my appointment had to be rescheduled for a few days later on my return from Arizona. Good! I thought, as I raced back to the intersection only five minutes away. Just as well, hoping to get a different kind of interview while traveling to Arizona. Less than a half-hour had passed since I left him. Would he still be there? I wanted to know more about this man.
Hey, I am a man!That dramatic gesture had screamed. Sure, my brain is a little bashed, but I saw things you have never seen, and I faced confrontations when I got home that you never imagined would happen in this great "land of the free and home of the brave." His whole demeanor had said to me, "Yes, I would like to ride with you and tell you a story you have never heard before," but now I was realizing that I may have fumbled it away on a no-count bureaucrat.
I arrived back at the intersection. Too late. He was gone. I wondered then if he had hobbled up the hill for a snack or cup of coffee, but a brief search at the motel and restaurant proved fruitless. He must have caught a ride.
I drove west on the interstate wondering if I might find him waiting where someone had dropped him after a short lift. But that, too, was a long shot that would not pay off. All the way across the lonely desert of southern New Mexico, there was not a single hitchhiker. Not even a mirage. Nothing.
I never saw him again, but I still speculate about him and his past and future and remember that proud, penetrating gesticulation. I wonder about the myriad of others somewhere out there who have fallen through the cracks and into the depths of America, and just how many of them would want to be acknowledged too. Not necessarily with a handout, or a job, or even a ride down the road. Just a friendly salute that might convey a message of, "Thank you, Brother! You were given a sorry job but performed it well."