thedrifter
03-31-08, 07:31 AM
KEVIN CULLEN
Brothers in arms
By Kevin Cullen, Globe Columnist | March 31, 2008
BURLINGTON - They were brothers, and they grew up in a small, white house, on a small side street, in a section of town the locals call The Flats.
Mark MacDonald couldn't hear, so his parents and siblings were his ears.
Greg MacDonald learned many things from his big brother, Mark, but if he learned anything it was patience. He saw so much more in the brother whom other people dismissed as handicapped.
The doctors said Mark wouldn't be able to ride a two-wheel bicycle. But Mark sped around the neighborhood on a two-wheeler like everybody else. Mark could read lips, and he could carry on long conversations with those, like his family, who could sign. Mark just wanted to be treated like everybody else.
Mark made Greg see the world differently, and in high school Greg volunteered to teach disabled kids how to swim.
Years later, Greg volunteered for the Marines.
Greg was not your average Marine. He studied classical guitar in college. He got a master's degree in philosophy. He wasn't the gung ho type, but was of the opinion that this is a world where sometimes you have to carry a gun to change things for the better.
Greg wanted to become a diplomat, to use the words he thought were more powerful than the gun he carried. When the invasion of Iraq became inevitable, he studied Arabic so he could talk to Iraqis in their native language.
After his unit stumbled across a mass grave outside Baghdad not long after they arrived in March 2003, the reluctant Marine hardened. He was still trying to figure it all out when the Humvee he was riding in as gunner flipped on a soft shoulder while rushing to aid some brother Marines who were ambushed near Hilla.
When Arthur and Diana MacDonald got word that their son had been killed, they worried that Greg's death would crush Mark. Greg was Mark's baby brother, but there was no one Mark looked up to more than Greg.
Greg's death didn't paralyze Mark. It had the opposite effect. Mark had been indecisive about college for years. But he was determined to get his degree, to honor Greg, to get an edge in the hearing world. Last June, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in business from Gallaudet College in Washington, D.C.
Nearly a year later, Mark MacDonald is still looking for work. The economy's bad. It's worse for a 41-year-old deaf guy.
He wants to be an accountant. He answers every advertisement he can find. He goes to every interview he can arrange. He thinks some prospective bosses are uncomfortable around a guy who can't hear. Others patronize him. He can size people up pretty quickly.
He could live off government handouts the rest of his life. He doesn't want to.
"I want a job," Mark said, speaking and signing simultaneously. "I want to get married. I want to have a family. But I need a job."
Every day, every week, brings frustration. Mark MacDonald was asked if he ever felt like giving up.
As if to answer, he pulled on his jacket and walked down the street, just a couple hundred feet, to Wildmere Playground, where he and his siblings and all the neighborhood kids used to play tag and hide-and-seek long into the dusk of hot summer nights.
There is a flagpole in the playground. The Stars and Stripes flapped hard in the wind, on top, above a smaller, red Marine Corps flag. A small portrait of Lance Corporal Greg MacDonald sits at the foot of the flagpole.
Mark unhooked the rope and pulled it taut, and the American flag flapped even louder, slapping against the wind, like slow applause.
He looked up to the flag, using a hand to shield the sun, so that it looked almost as if he were saluting. Then he looked back and this time he spoke, clearly, without using his hands to sign.
"I can't give up now," Mark MacDonald said.
Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com.
Ellie
Brothers in arms
By Kevin Cullen, Globe Columnist | March 31, 2008
BURLINGTON - They were brothers, and they grew up in a small, white house, on a small side street, in a section of town the locals call The Flats.
Mark MacDonald couldn't hear, so his parents and siblings were his ears.
Greg MacDonald learned many things from his big brother, Mark, but if he learned anything it was patience. He saw so much more in the brother whom other people dismissed as handicapped.
The doctors said Mark wouldn't be able to ride a two-wheel bicycle. But Mark sped around the neighborhood on a two-wheeler like everybody else. Mark could read lips, and he could carry on long conversations with those, like his family, who could sign. Mark just wanted to be treated like everybody else.
Mark made Greg see the world differently, and in high school Greg volunteered to teach disabled kids how to swim.
Years later, Greg volunteered for the Marines.
Greg was not your average Marine. He studied classical guitar in college. He got a master's degree in philosophy. He wasn't the gung ho type, but was of the opinion that this is a world where sometimes you have to carry a gun to change things for the better.
Greg wanted to become a diplomat, to use the words he thought were more powerful than the gun he carried. When the invasion of Iraq became inevitable, he studied Arabic so he could talk to Iraqis in their native language.
After his unit stumbled across a mass grave outside Baghdad not long after they arrived in March 2003, the reluctant Marine hardened. He was still trying to figure it all out when the Humvee he was riding in as gunner flipped on a soft shoulder while rushing to aid some brother Marines who were ambushed near Hilla.
When Arthur and Diana MacDonald got word that their son had been killed, they worried that Greg's death would crush Mark. Greg was Mark's baby brother, but there was no one Mark looked up to more than Greg.
Greg's death didn't paralyze Mark. It had the opposite effect. Mark had been indecisive about college for years. But he was determined to get his degree, to honor Greg, to get an edge in the hearing world. Last June, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in business from Gallaudet College in Washington, D.C.
Nearly a year later, Mark MacDonald is still looking for work. The economy's bad. It's worse for a 41-year-old deaf guy.
He wants to be an accountant. He answers every advertisement he can find. He goes to every interview he can arrange. He thinks some prospective bosses are uncomfortable around a guy who can't hear. Others patronize him. He can size people up pretty quickly.
He could live off government handouts the rest of his life. He doesn't want to.
"I want a job," Mark said, speaking and signing simultaneously. "I want to get married. I want to have a family. But I need a job."
Every day, every week, brings frustration. Mark MacDonald was asked if he ever felt like giving up.
As if to answer, he pulled on his jacket and walked down the street, just a couple hundred feet, to Wildmere Playground, where he and his siblings and all the neighborhood kids used to play tag and hide-and-seek long into the dusk of hot summer nights.
There is a flagpole in the playground. The Stars and Stripes flapped hard in the wind, on top, above a smaller, red Marine Corps flag. A small portrait of Lance Corporal Greg MacDonald sits at the foot of the flagpole.
Mark unhooked the rope and pulled it taut, and the American flag flapped even louder, slapping against the wind, like slow applause.
He looked up to the flag, using a hand to shield the sun, so that it looked almost as if he were saluting. Then he looked back and this time he spoke, clearly, without using his hands to sign.
"I can't give up now," Mark MacDonald said.
Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com.
Ellie