thedrifter
05-18-07, 09:01 AM
Nothing wipes away memory of Vietnam
Posted: May 17, 2007
Crocker Stephenson
He's sitting at a corner table of the Puerto Escondido restaurant on Mitchell St., by the front window. He is smoking, and sheets of smoke hang in the window light.
On the wall behind his back is a mural. In the mural are boats with white sails. They plow through a blue ocean, beneath white birds in a blue sky. A yard-long plastic iguana is nailed through its green spine to a palm tree painted just above his head.
He is drinking one Corona after another. Three. Four. Five. He drinks them like soda pop. Six. Now seven.
His name is William Wood. People called him Bull when he was a kid. Woody for a while. Now, if anyone happens to ask, and it's few that ever find cause, it's Bill.
One week after Bill turned 17, he hitchhiked an hour from his parents' farm to the nearest big city - Richmond, Ky. - and joined the Marines. He had never, he says, taken a drink, kissed a girl or been outside the county. His mama had to sign his enlistment papers.
He had grown up in a household without electricity or plumbing and without much truck with the outside world. He was surprised to find out there was a war going on in a place called Vietnam.
That's where, on Dec. 17, 1967, Bill went on patrol with six other Marines. What happened that day is one of the things Bill wishes he could forget.
A few years ago, Bill got a letter from the mother of the one other Marine who survived that patrol. Her son had given up trying to forget and shot himself in the head.
Bill pulls on his cigarette and says, "I'm not near drunk as I could be," and orders a shot of tequila. The waitress brings a bottle and a wooden bowl of sliced limes. She stays at the table, holding the bottle, pouring one shot after another. One. Two. Three. Four. Bill tries to touch her, and she steps away.
"She misunderstands me," he says.
Bill is wearing a brimmed cap with a Spanish obscenity stitched across the front. Three medals are pinned to the hat: the Marine Corps emblem, the jump wings of a Marine parachutist and a Purple Heart. A Purple Heart normally bears the profile of George Washington. His George Washington is snapped off.
He is a frightened and angry man. He cannot bear to walk on a sidewalk and have someone walking behind him. He is, after repeated rule violations and clashes with staff, not allowed to enter any veterans hospital in the country without an armed-guard escort.
When Bill was growing up in the hills of Kentucky, he tried to earn pocket money by raising rabbits to sell for meat and fur. But when the time came to slaughter the rabbits, Bill couldn't do it. He let them go in the woods.
That boy is what you see sometimes when you look at Bill. He's mixed in there with all the madness and anger. The boy Bill was is as plain as the pucker of scars on his left wrist, as the needle marks that track the veins and arteries of his left arm.
Bill is out of limes. He asks the waitress to bring more.
Contact Crocker Stephenson at (414) 224-2539 or by e-mail at cstephenson@journalsentinel.com.
Ellie
Posted: May 17, 2007
Crocker Stephenson
He's sitting at a corner table of the Puerto Escondido restaurant on Mitchell St., by the front window. He is smoking, and sheets of smoke hang in the window light.
On the wall behind his back is a mural. In the mural are boats with white sails. They plow through a blue ocean, beneath white birds in a blue sky. A yard-long plastic iguana is nailed through its green spine to a palm tree painted just above his head.
He is drinking one Corona after another. Three. Four. Five. He drinks them like soda pop. Six. Now seven.
His name is William Wood. People called him Bull when he was a kid. Woody for a while. Now, if anyone happens to ask, and it's few that ever find cause, it's Bill.
One week after Bill turned 17, he hitchhiked an hour from his parents' farm to the nearest big city - Richmond, Ky. - and joined the Marines. He had never, he says, taken a drink, kissed a girl or been outside the county. His mama had to sign his enlistment papers.
He had grown up in a household without electricity or plumbing and without much truck with the outside world. He was surprised to find out there was a war going on in a place called Vietnam.
That's where, on Dec. 17, 1967, Bill went on patrol with six other Marines. What happened that day is one of the things Bill wishes he could forget.
A few years ago, Bill got a letter from the mother of the one other Marine who survived that patrol. Her son had given up trying to forget and shot himself in the head.
Bill pulls on his cigarette and says, "I'm not near drunk as I could be," and orders a shot of tequila. The waitress brings a bottle and a wooden bowl of sliced limes. She stays at the table, holding the bottle, pouring one shot after another. One. Two. Three. Four. Bill tries to touch her, and she steps away.
"She misunderstands me," he says.
Bill is wearing a brimmed cap with a Spanish obscenity stitched across the front. Three medals are pinned to the hat: the Marine Corps emblem, the jump wings of a Marine parachutist and a Purple Heart. A Purple Heart normally bears the profile of George Washington. His George Washington is snapped off.
He is a frightened and angry man. He cannot bear to walk on a sidewalk and have someone walking behind him. He is, after repeated rule violations and clashes with staff, not allowed to enter any veterans hospital in the country without an armed-guard escort.
When Bill was growing up in the hills of Kentucky, he tried to earn pocket money by raising rabbits to sell for meat and fur. But when the time came to slaughter the rabbits, Bill couldn't do it. He let them go in the woods.
That boy is what you see sometimes when you look at Bill. He's mixed in there with all the madness and anger. The boy Bill was is as plain as the pucker of scars on his left wrist, as the needle marks that track the veins and arteries of his left arm.
Bill is out of limes. He asks the waitress to bring more.
Contact Crocker Stephenson at (414) 224-2539 or by e-mail at cstephenson@journalsentinel.com.
Ellie