Vietnam

I asked my father about Vietnam. I told him that one of the few things I knew about his life was that he had gone to Vietnam. I explained to him that I used to visit the Vietnam Memorial and stand where his name would have been, thankful that I never found those letters engraved in the cold black stone, knowing that I would not be standing there if they had. I asked him how you shoot in the direction of a child. He cried. He told me that you hear a comrade shot, watch him land at your feet with his guts spilling out yet you don’t think, you move your body forward while shooting into the dark. He said the jungle is always dark. He told me that most of the men in his unit stayed numb using drugs and women, he was often sent into the villages to pull men out of huts and back into the jungle.

Strange to refer to him as father, I found myself hesitating before using his first name, yet unable to stammer out dad; I spent the week calling him none of the above, opting instead to speak face to face.